Ed Fallon sought to connect Leonard Boswell with unwelcome trends in Iowa agriculture during three campaign events on April 12. An accompanying press release from the challenger’s campaign noted:
Fallon served on the Iowa House Agriculture Committee for six years and believes that the rampant consolidation of the hog industry and the explosion of confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are impacting family farming and rural community viability.
Fallon noted that in 1995, a bill (HF 519) changed Iowa law to enable a drastic shift in hog production from family farms to corporate giants such as Iowa Select, DeCoster, Murphy, and Premium Standard.
Fallon said, “As it happens, the President of the Iowa Senate at that time was Leonard Boswell, my opponent in this race. While I worked with fellow House Democrats to block passage of HF 519, Leonard Boswell helped get it passed in the Senate. ”
Fallon says he [is] disappointed that the Democratic Legislature in Iowa has done nothing on this issue and would recommend a moratorium at the federal level.
It’s not the first time Fallon has emphasized the differences between himself and Boswell on agriculture policy. That Iowa bill passed in 1995 features prominently on the agriculture page of Fallon’s campaign website.
Fallon made the point again in an interview with Iowa Independent blogger Dien Judge last month.
Can Fallon, who represented an urban district in the Iowa House, persuade third-district voters that he is the better candidate on farm issues?
The agriculture page on Boswell’s campaign website reads:
“Iowa’s farmers are among our greatest assets and they deserve our support.”
Congressman Boswell grew up on a farm in rural Iowa and returned to Iowa to farm after his service in the military. He successfully led his local farmer’s co-op through the farm crisis of the 1980s, when he served as its chair. Today, Boswell is guided by the values and common sense he learned as a farmer.
In Congress, Boswell has been a friend to agriculture. He is one of two Iowa Representatives to serve on the House Agriculture Committee and one of only 37 farmers in the entire Congress. He voted in favor of the most recent Farm Bill, which makes historic investments in conservation, nutrition, fruit and vegetable production, and renewable energy while maintaining a strong safety net for America’s farmers and ranchers.
During his tenure in Congress and on the Agriculture Committee, Boswell has fought for increased market transparency, expanding renewable energy production, increasing value-added agricultural products, keeping marginal land out of agricultural production, increased working lands conservation programs, and to keep a real safety net for our nation’s producers.
Speaking to Iowa Independent, Fallon suggested that Iowa needs to build more local food networks and diversity of crops produced:
“Before I got involved in politics I did some farming, but I messed up my back bad enough that wasn’t going to happen anymore. But to me, we need to create local markets for food products where we can help broaden the base of agriculture. I mean, we’re always going to be a leader. Iowa’s always going to be a leader in corn, soybean, hog and cattle production. But why can’t we also regain some of our status with fruits and vegetables and dairy? There are so many other areas. We can do anything here when it comes to agriculture; we can do it all.”
In the same interview, Fallon acknowledged that he has “a lot more to learn” about federal agricultural policy, since his “focus in agriculture has been on Iowa issues, as they related to the Legislature’s role.”
Boswell seized on that admission in his own interview with Dien Judge, which Iowa Independent published on April 11:
Ask Boswell about his primary race, and he’ll say he’s ready for the challenge. He’s proud of his record and isn’t shy about criticizing his opponent. “I’ve had some very good success with different areas of conservation and energy and alternative fuels, which is something I’ve been involved in for many, many years. And I’ll continue to be there,” said Boswell. He said Fallon is always “trying to think of something to be critical about,” when “by his own admission he knows very little, if anything, about agriculture.”
“But I do know about agriculture, and I’m hands-on. I was actually born in a farmhouse. I spent my years growing up farming, and then my friends and neighbors called me off to the Army and I went off for a period of time. And when I came back, I went right back in the same neighborhood and took the risks and made the investment to farm. We went through a farm crisis, not only running a farm operation of my own but also in leadership of my local cooperative. You know, I have that under my belt. And by comparison, he doesn’t have anything like that.”
Boswell said federal agriculture policy is of the utmost importance to Iowa’s 3rd District, and it’s important to have an experienced hand in the Congress. “I think folks will figure that out,” he said. “And so I’m just going to keep on trying to do the good job that I try to do. We’re not going to hit every ball, but we sure try. And overall, I feel good about what I’ve done. So I bring to the table a lot of things that he just has no ability to bring to the table.”
Boswell has occasionally cited his experience as a farmer to justify Congressional votes that have nothing to do with agriculture. For instance, when a participant in a telephone town-hall meeting asked Boswell to defend his vote in favor of the bankruptcy bill in 2005 (which most House Democrats opposed), Boswell replied:
“I am a survivor of the farm crisis, and saw folks that bankrupted when they really had the ability to pay back,” said Boswell, who owns a cattle farm in southern Iowa. “It seems to me like when we sign our name on the line and promise to pay, that we have a responsibility if we have the ability to pay.”
At the same time, more help and counseling are needed to assist consumers from falling too deeply into debt, Boswell said. He said he worked very hard to not fall into bankruptcy when he faced financial problems with his own farm operation.
Although I can’t find a link right now, I recall Boswell justifying his vote to permanently repeal the estate tax (another Republican-backed effort opposed by most House Democrats) by saying we need to protect family farms. But as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows in its discussion of estate tax “myths”,
Despite oft-repeated claims that the estate tax has dire consequences for family farms and small businesses, there is in fact very little evidence that it has an outsize impact on these groups. Indeed, the American Farm Bureau Federation acknowledged to the New York Times that it could not cite a single example of a farm having to be sold to pay estate taxes.
My guess is that anyone in the third district who is satisfied with current federal policy on farm subsidies and other agricultural issues will support Boswell in the June 3 primary.
But bringing up the expansion of CAFOs in Iowa, and connecting that with the law Boswell supported in 1995, could help Fallon with Democrats who are concerned with environmental problems associated with CAFOs. They include city and suburban dwellers as well as some rural residents who have seen the quality of life in their communities decline. Fallon has been an outspoken proponent of “local control” over the siting of CAFOs (currently Iowa law does not grant counties any zoning authority over agricultural operations).
You can read the full text of the Fallon campaign’s April 12 press release on agricultural issues after the jump.
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