Daniel and David Rosmann

How long has this farm been in your family?

Dan: This is the third generation now. My grandpa started farming here. It feels natural. I can’t see myself doing anything else. I’ve been here all my life, just growing to love it, just working outside. I couldn’t imagine working in an office all day.

How many of the people you went to school with are coming back to farm?

Dan: Very few. That includes even in my agronomy class there. They wanted to come back and farm, but they just said, no, I don’t see that as a possibility. They just don’t see it that they can make it economically. With prices so low and the high expenses involved in farming, it’s kind of a big turn-off at this point unless you’re involved in some sort of alternative to the conventional type.

Dave: I think there could be a great future for young people in farming, but there’s got to be some changes made in the communities that we live in and we go to church in and we shop at. There’s got to be some sort of investment made in these communities where we feel, I’m at this point where I could get married, I could raise a family.

You know that there’s a good school in the closest town, and that there’s grocery stores, and you can do any sort of shopping you wan there, instead of the way it is now, the lure of the nearest city with the shopping malls, the fancy restaurants, the big theatres, and the things that you probably can’t get here on that level; I think is pulling so many people away. They think, “Well, there’s more of a life that could be had there.”

And for people that grew up on a farm, that know what it’s like to be on a farm, then went to college and found out what the city’s like, well, it’s pretty clear where they want to end up.

Is something different going on with the Rosmann farm that makes it more possible for you to come back?

Dan: Oh yeah, definitely. Our diversification is the biggest factor, the fact that we aren’t just involved with corn and soybeans. We can spread our risk out, and we can make money off of our livestock and our other crops.

Dave: I think we’re pretty lucky, Daniel and our younger brother Mark, the chances that we have to come back. Daniel’s already back, I might come back some day, Mark might come back some day. The fact that we had parents and grandparents who knew how to farm, and could see in to the future, and say, this is how we’re going to make it, we’re going to make it on our own, we don’t need government’s help to do this. But at the same time, fighting government from everything that’s surrounding us, the type of agriculture that’s surrounding us.

And it’s unfortunate that guys our age, and girls, that want to come farm, you know, they may or not have parents that own a lot of land or they just think that there’s this mentality that the only way to jump into farming is to start one of these big hog factories and that’s your bread and butter. But, we got it pretty well made here with this. We’re big enough as it is, and I think there’s definitely a future for the three of us here.

Do farmers need subsidies because of subsidies?

Dan: Yeah, I’d say that’s true. Subsidies are not helping rural America. They’re adding to a system that is bad for small and medium-size farmers. It is helping larger farmers, and then the smaller farmers can’t compete.

Does it feel good to be operating more of a diversified farm and organic?

Dan: Yeah, we’ve been farming organically forever now. We were certified in ’94, but before that we were hardly ever using pesticides. And even then, that wasn’t just an environmental decision, and an economic decision. We can make a go of it without pesticides and it’s cheaper as a result. There’s definitely nothing we’re guilty about in this type of farming. And that’s the way it should be. You shouldn’t have anything hanging on your head.

Dave: It does feel really good, because you can see, we have cattle grazing out there, we have hogs here in the yard, and the manure that’s produced from them, we compost it out in the field and apply that for our fertilizer. And the fact that we don’t have to buy anything off our farm, the inputs are slim to zero out here.

Being organic, the compost that we put on, and the crop rotations that we have, we’re always thinking more than two years ahead. Most conventional farmers, they think corn beans is corn beans. We think five to seven years ahead with every field.

What satisfies you the most about the way you guys are going about things?

Dan: Well, it’s the whole system, we’re happy with how is it a closed system. We’re not bringing in fertilizers and pesticides and other inputs.

We’re using our own manure from our cattle and hogs and relying on mechanical and manual crop rotations for pest control and weed control. So that in itself is really satisfying.

Why not keep your livestock in confinement?

Dan: Cattle are meant to be on grass, they evolved that way. They didn’t evolve just to eat corn, and that’s why they have to keep pumping them full of antibiotics. So, that’s why we put ours out on grass and then just supplement with corn.

[Confinement] also hurts their immunity, too. Once they’ve been in the elements, they’re tougher now, they can handle it better, and we don’t have disease problems at all.

Our hogs don’t need antibiotics. And if they do, there’s a couple here or there, we can separate them and the rest can still be sold as organic. But even then, we haven’t needed to do that hardly at all.

You guys grow a lot of the grains fed to your livestock.

Dan: Well, when you feed your own grains, that’s all about efficiency there. You’re not trucking in grains from far distances, and that’s part of the closed system that we have. It’s better for our farm, if we can feed our own corn and soybean meal and barley and oats. Our grains go for all of our livestock, our chickens, our hogs, and our cattle.

The Farm Bureau and the Ag Committees are pumping all this money into a whole different style of agriculture that involves a lot of environmental problems.

Dan: I’m sure it’s just all money. I don’t know what else could fuel lobbying for that type of farming. It’s hard for me to understand if they believe what they’re saying, which would be really ignorant of them, or if it’s just done purely for money, which would be almost evil.

Who’s making money?

Dan: Well, people that farm thousands of acres and have large cattle lots, large hog confinements, the people that you can’t consider family farmers. I mean, critics would say, “Oh, it’s a family.” But, really in many of the cases, it’s a family that owns it and have outside investors making money off of it and then low wage employees running it.

Could it be said that farmers need subsidies because of subsidies?

Dave: I think that the people with power saw that they could put this never ending cycle together where those [politicians] who are with all the power are making all the money, and those of us actually doing the labor and producing the food, feeding the animals, are losing out big time.

Could you get by without subsidies?

Dave: We subsidize ourselves with the way we farm here. The fact that we’re trying something that, 20, 30 years ago people would’ve stood around and laughed at us, even today, in our area in Iowa, organic farming is not as prevalent as it should be.

Not many people your age are farming.

Dan: Economically, young people don’t see farming as an option for them, because they can’t make any money out of it, unless they get into some sort of alternative style of farming, which is available. Unfortunately, many people don’t know about these types of farming and aren’t educated about them, so they don’t get into it.

Dave: And the fact that what we’re doing is an alternative; it’s not a niche anymore, alternative is such a bad word for some people that I think it scares a lot of young people. “Oh, I know kind of what organic farming is, but I don’t want my neighbors to look at me and say I’m crazy or something.” But that’s something that’s got to change.

Where would your conventional neighbors be without subsidies?

Dave: They’d probably be hurting a little bit if they didn’t. There’s been such a decoupling of livestock from the land that none of our neighbors really have livestock anymore; they either have all the land or they have all the livestock. They don’t have both. And so the ones that just have the land, they can’t supplement their income with hogs or with cattle because they don’t have any anywhere.

Some congressmen say you can’t feed the world without herbicides and pesticides.

Dan: That’s completely untrue. Our yields are meeting the county averages, and if we had proper seed breeding for organics, we’d like to think that we would even exceed those averages. I mean, so much of the corn crop is going towards ethanol right now, towards non-food sources.

Dave: And if we’re feeding the world with all this corn, how come there’s still such horrible rates of poverty in Africa and even parts of America there are people that can’t feed themselves every day. Yet farmers are feeding the world, the mentality is, what’s keeping this corn surplus out there?

Every fall now, you’ll be seeing these huge piles of corn outside because they can’t store it anywhere, and what do they lose? Five percent due to mold because they can’t store it anywhere.

Dan: Yeah, we’re not feeding the world; we’re only feeding those who can afford our corn.

If we had a farm policy that provided some more support, would it be possible for more family farmers to operate?

Dan: I think a change in policy would be the first thing that would need to happen to revitalize rural America, because right now it’s just keeping it down.

Does the farm bill give you the support you need?

Dan: Not completely. There’s too much money in the subsidy system and there’s not enough for CSP or any other conservation program, or the beginning farmers program, there needs to be a lot more of the funds directed that way.

Dave: I think, going a lot with that too, if we could start getting some people into the legislature, both statewide and nationally, that have some fire underneath them, that are willing to go out there and make these changes, instead of just going with the flow, getting hooked up with the Farm Bureaus and the pork producers and those kind of groups that get them in their pockets. If we can get these independent minded people in there, let’s get some changes going. Let’s get some policy moving that’ll start supporting things like public plant breeding, where as today, if you’re not organic, you’re clamped down by the Mansano and the Syngenta, I mean, how many options do you have?

You’re told what to grow and when to grow it, pretty much. And if we could just change that, start somehow with changing people that have been in office and have had the power and get new people in there, fresh voices that come from a farm, that know what it’s like to actually be on a farm, that haven’t been sitting in D.C. for the past 30 years.

Why do you think so many office holders and policy makers end up cozying up like they do to Mansano, Cargill, and Agribusiness Industry?

Dave: I think it makes whatever little work they do all that more easy.

Dan: Those groups have lots of lobbying power compared to some of the smaller grassroots type.

Dave: Yeah, on a statewide level, when I go to the Capital with another CCI rural organizer, we’ll be sitting there in a committee meeting, just the two of us, and across from us will be eight or nine or ten Farm Bureau lobbyists, and they’re there every day, all day long, and that’s what we’re up against.

Family farmers don’t have a lot of loose change in their pockets to be giving to someone’s candidacy, but Mansano’s got a lot more cash to throw around. In terms of getting an independent voice, to what degree do you think campaigning finance would play a role?

Dave: Well, campaign finance reform, on a state level and a national level, some legislation that really mattered, where you were limiting the amount of money that goes to a certain candidate, or allowing someone who’s running for office the chance to actually meet with people, talk to the people, instead of trying to raise all these funds to beat someone that’s been in office forever that holds all this power, that would really open the door for a lot of fresh voices.

Do you guys feel represented in Washington D.C.?

Dave: Our legislators, besides just the handful, have not done crap for us for years. And it’s pretty clear to the eye.

Dan: I’d say that on both the state and national level, family farmers are not being represented.

Dave: Daniel was just there back in March.

Dan: Yeah, as part of the Sustainable Ag Coalition, we were trying to scrape for every penny we can get for conservation and beginning farmers program in the next farm bill. Out there, you could really see what you’re up against it. It’s not easy.

Who is being represented?

Dave: The Cargill’s, the Smithfield’s, the Prestige Farms, the Swinegraphics, if you’re hooked up with Farm Bureau, or any one of those big commodity groups and you’ve got a lot of money in your pocket, that’s who they’re representing.

What do you think about your dad running for office?

Dave: Oh, I couldn’t be more excited for him. He’s been talking about this for years, and it’s about time he started getting serious about it. And now that Daniel’s back farming, he’s got some leeway with being out there campaigning, and if he gets elected to actually be in Des Moines, Daniel can stay home and farm and maybe Mark or myself will be home too.

I think it’s great. I think it’d be our wonderful for our district to have a fresh voice in the Legislature who is still has a really good connection with the land, with the people, and not someone who’s been in office forever and has lost that touch.

Whoever is going to be your dad’s main opponent may be getting lot of campaign money from the usual suspects. How do you think your dad’s going to contend with that, given that we don’t have public funded elections?

Dave: Because we don’t have public funded elections, he’s going to have to do a lot of door knocking, a lot of politicking the old fashioned way, where it actually means something to get to know your future constituents and go to every chicken dinner and every school function. He’s going to have to get out there and make his name and face known to people, instead of relying on all these donations coming in from who knows where and having that help him get through.

So many of the towns across Iowa seem half dead. How can a small town like Harland be livelier?

Dan: I think it follows the decline in agriculture, pretty much directly.

Dave: The loss of the family farm agriculture, though. Once you lose family farms, you start losing the need for a local feed store, for the local seed dealers, for the local veterinarians. You can see it all across the state, all across the Midwest, you’ve got just a few guys farming, a few guys raising all the livestock.

Iowa used to raise this number of livestock, and now we have fewer hog farmers, but we’ll still raise the same amount of livestock. Where’s the need for all these local supply stores and all that? What’s really better: a couple guys farming all this land and raising all these animals or a hundred guys?

Is there truth that the bigger the farm, the tougher it is to farm in a way that’s a sustainable manner?

Dan: The larger you are, the harder it is to manage your farm.

Dave: I think you start cutting corners with conservation practices. I think if you have a mentality that you want to keep growing bigger and bigger and bigger, and you can’t even manage it anymore, then I don’t think you really care that much about conservation, so what’s the point of even trying anymore?

Drive across the state and you can just see gullies washing out of fields, into streams and you think, how can these people call themselves farmers? They’re losing how many tons of their topsoil every year, and they call themselves good stewards.

What is the Coalition to Support Iowa Farmers?

Dave: The Coalition to Support Iowa Farmers is the PR group for the commodity groups in the state of Iowa.  They’re the corporate ag machine.

Dan: But they claim that they help family farmers and they can get away with saying that since there’s no real legal definition of a family farmer. But it’s pretty obvious looking at landscape, seeing a family that owns a bunch of acres that’s just fueled by outside investment. I wouldn’t call that a family farm.

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