Big Ag trying to rescue Naig

Walked out to the mailbox one day this past week and found a campaign mailer. Not unusual as we hurtle toward the Nov. 3 election.

Did you know they can be shredded into a beneficial mulch?

This mailer proclaimed, in big capital letters, “THANK YOU MIKE NAIG.”

Naig, a Republican, is Iowa’s secretary of agriculture and is up for re-election.

It said Naig is “leading the charge on conservation practices and stronger drinking water infrastructure so Iowa families continue to have safe water at the t a p .”

It also said Naig is “Working alongside farmers to protect the streams, rivers and lakes where Iowa families fish, swim and play.”

Wow. Who knew?

The mailer was paid for by Iowans for Agriculture. The tax-exempt group organized under Chapter 527 of the federal tax code can advocate on public policy issues and, apparently, crank out thank-you notes to politicians. The group was created by the Iowa Farm Bureau.

It means Big Ag is putting the band back together.

In 2018, Iowans for Agriculture raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from agribusinesses, producer groups and the Farm Bureau itself to rescue Naig from possible defeat by Democrat Tim Gannon. A pitch to potential donors said, “Iowa farmers and agribusiness will benefit for years to come if a campaign is successf u l .”

Mission accomplished. Now they’re back to rescue Naig again.

According to the group’s latest IRS filings, covering July through mid-October, Iowans for Agriculture raised more than $360,000 from the usual suspects. And it has spent more than $400,000 for radio, cable TV, digital ads and mail for Naig. And that’s on top of the $563,000 Naig raised in direct contributions between July and October, including more bucks from his admirers at the top of the agriculture food chain.

It’s just the heartwarming story of a plucky former Monsanto lobbyist who gets by with a little help from his friends.

TODD DORMAN

The biggest donation to Iowans for Agriculture came from the Iowa Farm Bureau, which chipped in $147,000.

The ethanol industry did its part. The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association donated $61,000. Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy, a Council Bluffs-based ethanol producer, gave $25,000 while Golden Grain Energy, based in Mason City, chipped in $20,000.

Absolute Energy in St. Ansgar contributed $10,000. Western Dubuque Biodiesel and the Iowa Biodiesel Board each gave $5,000.

Producer groups also have been generous. The Iowa Pork Producers contributed $30,000 and the Iowa Corn Growers donated $25,000. The Iowa Turkey Federation kicked in $5,000, as did turkey and hog producer Prestige Farms, based in North Carolina with operations in five states.

Steve Burere, president of People’s Company, an agricultural land transaction firm, contributed $10,000. Beck’s Hybrids based in Atlanta, and Atticus, a North Carolina manufacturer of fungicides, herbicides and pesticides, are among other $5,000 donors.

These are the corporations, associations, farm operations and producer groups that own the secretary of agriculture’s office and benefit from Naig’s commitment to the status quo.

“Well, everybody asks me, or they suggest to me, the secretary of agriculture doesn’t have any power to do anything. And I say, well, these people that donate big money to Naig’s campaign sure must think it has some power,” Naig’s Democratic challenger, Chris Jones, told me this past week.

And there is one big downside of business as usual. It means more nitrate pollution in Iowa’s waterways. Most of the nitrate drains from cropland laden with commercial fertilizer or hog manure from large confinement facilities.

Welcome to Iowa. We’ve got fish kills and manure spills.

It’s all fun and political games until you consider all the research piling up that indicates nitrate exposure could raise Iowans’ risk for some forms of cancer. The risk can stem from long-term exposure to nitrate levels in drinking water below the federal safe water standard of 10 mg/L.

“The fact that he needs this much money to attempt to stay in office tells you a little bit about the state of things here, right? And so, to keep the system entrenched, he needs money from these big spenders in corporate agribusiness, and these are not people that have the best interest of Iowa at heart,” Jones said.

Jones, a former research engineer at the University of Iowa who studied water quality for decades, said the money doesn’t bother him. He’s running a different kind of campaign, holding town halls across the state, but no TV ads. And, as a refreshing change, he’s telling the awful truth about Iowa’s dirty water.

Meanwhile, Naig is out masquerading as a water conservationist backed with money from people who want clean water, but only if it doesn’t affect their bottom lines. Naig wants to continue strictly voluntary participation in conservation programs and measure progress by counting projects and dollars spent.

Do we need rigorous water monitoring that can tell us the true story? Nah.

Jones points out the fact that since 1999, nitrate levels in waterways have not improved. The highest nitrate levels were recorded in 2024, according to the Nutrient Research Center at Iowa State University. Numbers for 2025 aren’t available yet but could show another banner year for dirty water. The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy was launched in 2013, and the voluntary effort to fulfill its objectives has not made meaningful progress.

Residents in the Des Moines metro have faced water use restrictions during the last two summers because a system for removing nitrate from their drinking water couldn’t keep up with the nitrate pollution levels spawned by ag operations in northwest Iowa.

This summer, Iowa saw a record number of beach advisories triggered mainly by E. coli levels. So much for families swimming and playing.

On a related note, Iowa livestock produce upwards of 107 million tons of manure each year. If some of it ends up in the water it’s regrettable, but apparently not preventable.

Iowa remains a top contributor of nitrate to the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and on to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Iowa and other Midwestern states promised to shrink the dead zone. Ask Louisiana shrimpers how that’s going.

The ag secretary race has become a referendum on clean water.

“I mean, everywhere we go, the room is full,” Jones said. ”I think everything is just spilling out into the open here over the last nine or 10 months. People are fed up. They want some change.”

Jones also clearly wants change. He hopes to help farmers grow more food crops and diversify what they plant to stem the environmental damage caused by continuous corn and soybean rotations. He’s also no friend of ethanol, which requires overproduction of corn and more fertilizer.

And he wants laws that push landowners to adopt water conservation measures and abandon practices that do environmental harm. These would not be voluntary.

Iowa has elected secretaries of agriculture for 104 years. During that time, only one Republican incumbent lost a re-election bid. Lucius B. Libby was swept out of office by a big blue wave in 1964. But Libby won the job back in 1966. Jones would be just the sixth Democrat to serve as ag secretary if he wins Nov. 3.

“I think this water quality thing and the cancer issue are the big catalysts here for something new, and I think it’s going to happen,” Jones said. “If it doesn’t, you know, I will be in my fishing boat the next day.”

To ddDorman is opinion editor atThe Gazette. Comments: (319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com