We are being farmed

Jodi Enos-Berlage

I recently returned from the third agriculture and soil health conference I’ve attended and/or presented at this year. I cannot get the painfully expressed words of a fellow presenter out of my head, a young man desperately seeking to grow things but with no current nor perceived future pathway to do it. “We are being farmed,” he said. Yes. We. Are. Farmed for our labor, tax dollars and clicks, which, much like hay baes, are being harvested, packaged and sold. At the same time, the current administration continually cultivates culture wars of “us vs. them” on the ground, distraction after distraction so that we won’t notice the extraction.

Fifty years ago, my farming parents were promised trickle-down economics and that their tax dollars wouldn’t be going to “welfare queens,” false policies that are still being used to manipulate. Since then, $50 trillion has moved from the lower 90% to the top 1%, consolidating wealth and power to the welfare kings. These include the tech billionaires who skirt taxes while securing taxpayer-funded government contracts. They also enjoy no oversight from the politicians they bought and paid for, enabling runaway artificial intelligence and data centers that are now farming our land, energy, water, privacy, and creative and intellectual work. It’s the largest non-consensual, forced technology in human history.

Here’s what I’m noticing: My grocery bill set a new record a week ago. In three years, our health insurance has risen 51%. Our property insurance has gone up 77%. Home ownership is a myth to our children now. Gas is $4.29/gallon; a year ago it was $2.91. Diesel has been setting new records by the day, now soaring past $6/gallon, a 70% increase just in time for farm harvest needs, caused by the new forever war of choice in a sector already stressed by tariff-induced market disruptions and spring fertilizer surges. Beef prices are intentionally undermined with mystery meat scraps from somewhere. For an administration that continually professes love for farmers, I see no evidence. Taxpayer-funded bailouts to compensate for losses from the above policies don’t count.

Perhaps the biggest wrongdoing of all is the dereliction of duty of the entire Iowa Congressional delegation as they choose repeatedly not to exercise their constitutional check and balance, including the “power of the purse,” and appear to forget who they work for. No comment as my tax dollars are spent on a ballroom that no one asked for, after half a house was demolished without the owner’s permission. Voting for the Epstein class protector to lead the Department of Justice. Voting for a testosterone-obsessed talk show host to lead the Department of Defense. Approving beautiful bills for billionaires that simultaneously starve both rural hospitals and people — the biggest impacts, by design, to occur after November. Actively participating or doing nothing as an administration unable to earn votes makes every attempt to suppress them. Stunning silence as this administration actively aligns with Russia. Or expressing “concern,” as Ashley Hinson did about tariffs, the same week she voted to remove her own constitutionally-authorized ability to challenge them. Or, in remarkably consistent fashion, Hinson’s recent call for an “immediate end” to the Iran war, the same week she voted against a resolution to halt it.

There is one place I know my vote counts as much as a billionaire, and not in my lifetime has there been an election with this much opportunity. Every Iowa congressional seat, the governor’s seat, and down ballot seat is at play. After experiencing the results of a 10-year Republican-party trifecta at the state level and a four-year 100% Republican congressional delegation in Washington, all while unprecedented corruption goes unchecked, deficits and cancer rates rise, water quality, health care access and affordability fall, and Iowa’s once premier education ranking tanks into the bottom half, I am ready for a shift. It’s time to rotate the crops.

Critically, we do not have to consent to further downward spiral; it’s within our power to grow and build something better. Like soil, the real richness of Iowa is in the people on the ground. By giving back more than what’s taken, depleted soil can fire back to life. I want Iowa’s children to have a fertile place to grow. I will be voting for change in October, up and down the ballot. With energetic enthusiasm, I invite you to join.

Jodi Enos-Berlage, Ph.D., is a scientist, educator, farmer, artist and mother who lives and farms in the Dry Run Creek Watershed in Northeast Iowa. She teaches microbiology, conducts research on water quality and soil health, co-directs and performs in artistic performances connected to water and soil, and leads a major project focused on regenerating soil and community. Opinions expressed here are her own.