Members of Iowa Farmers Union believe that independent family farmers are the best stewards of the state’s land, air and water. Farmers who live and work the land with their families clearly are more concerned with sustainability and being good neighbors than owners who live out of state or elsewhere in Iowa.

Our policy strongly supports meaningful conservation practices, and urges the USDA to tie federal farm payments to conservation.

Our members want to leave their working farms to the next generation of farmers, and the only way to ensure that future farmers can make a sustainable living on the land is to take care of it–by building soil nutrients rather than depleting them with intensive mono-cropping, applying a minimum of pesticides or using organic practices, and keeping livestock spread out among many smaller farms to avoid the air and water quality and disease problems associated with CAFOs.