They're not making any more land...

The amount of soil that Iowa agriculture loses each year could bury every acre owned by the Iowa DNR under 2-3" of the most productive dirt on earth. 

If we could capture all that runaway soil and build new land with it, we could create over 160,000 new acres, 7" thick (that's the average depth of the remaining topsoil on Iowa farms, down from over 14" when we first began plowing it up). 

Put another way, in less than two full corn-soybean crop rotations, Iowa agriculture loses enough topsoil to replace every acre the Iowa DNR owns. 

Yet we send that soil down our streams and rivers with hardly a thought. And in that soil is the fertilizer and livestock feces that we over apply to our fields in the name of production. And we wonder why our lakes are green and posted with no-swim advisories. 

I bring this up because there's an ever-increasing effort in the Iowa legislature to prohibit public land acquisition, mostly by the DNR. In a state that ranks near last in the nation in terms of public land availability to its citizens and visitors, you'd think this was nonsensical. Yet every year for several years running now, it's become a bigger and bigger priority at the state house. As I write this, there are two bills working through the system that would restrict DNR's ability to acquire property. This is on top of the now-dead effort to repeal the constitutionally established Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund. 

Why?

When we talk to legislators, here's what we're told are the main reasons:

1. The DNR overpays for land and/or buys it at auction making it difficult for beginning farmers to get started in the industry. 
2. The DNR can't take care of the land it has, it shouldn't be allowed to get more. 

There are probably others, but these are the most common claims. So I'd like to dig into both. 

First, let's talk about new farmers. 

The DNR owns less than 400,000 acres in Iowa, or about 1% of the state. Those acres represent about 40% of the total conservation and recreation land available here in Iowa. Of those acres, 51% are in the 100-year floodplain, 10% are wetlands, 80% are highly erodible (not that that matters to the ag industry, as noted above, but still...), and a full 14% were enrolled in a wetland easement prior to DNR ownership (source). 

Also contrary to popular belief, the DNR does pay property tax. It has been required to do so by law since the 1990s. In FY25, it paid over $1.3 million in property taxes. The moneys to pay those taxes come from REAP (largely funded with gambling proceeds) and Wildlife Habitat Stamp funds (paid by hunters via license sales). 

The average CSR (corn suitability rating) of DNR land is 32 (source). 

In other words, if a new farmer was to get started on land similar to what the DNR owns, he would soon go broke. The argument I hear against that is that those DNR lands could be used to get started raising livestock. From an environmental perspective, I'd like to think even the ag industry recognizes the absurdity of raising livestock in floodplains and wetlands. 

But then again, water quality isn't exactly a priority for this state, as evidenced by the fact that more than half of our streams and lakes fail to meet basic water quality standards. But that's a story for another time. Or one that best left to Chris Jones. 

Now let's talk about maintenance. The claim that the DNR can't manage its own lands is tenuous at best, and to whatever small degree it may be true (let's face it, in light of climate change, intensification of weather patterns, invasive species proliferation, and increasing administrative burdens, all of us in this industry at times struggle to manage to the degree we would like), it's largely state-inflicted. Between 2009 and 2018, the DNR's budget was cut in half. I've tried to get data on how it has fared since and I've been unable to. But I bet I can guess. 

I think it's pretty rich for the industrial ag industry to bitch about a public agency's maintenance failures when that very industry is largely responsible for all sorts of environmental ills including the aforementioned water quality failures and a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico larger than many east coast states. 

I don't know about you, but I tend to believe that 100-something million tons (TONS!) of soil lost every single year could be considered a failure of maintenance. I often hear the, "they're not making any more land" argument in these public land attacks. I'd counter with, "and we're not doing a very good job at keeping what we have, either."

And it's not like we don't know how to do better. It's not like we lack the technologies, or even the strategies to do better. Hell, the conservation world and Iowans at large have even offered to help (more so than we already do with taxpayer funded conservation programs). The Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund, were it to be funded, would contribute something to the tune of $150 million annually (about 60% of total fund revenues) to ag-based conservation practices through its various funding mechanisms. 

Yet the big ag lobby wants to paint this picture that all of us in conservation are out to get the small farmer and keep him from getting a start in life. 

The average price of farmland in Iowa is $11,467 per acre (as of 2024), up more than 400% in the last 20 years. No conservation organization is paying that kind of money for public land. Further, a full 25% of Iowa farmland is owned by non-Iowans currently. That percentage is likely to grow as generational ownership changes - about 2/3 of Iowa farmland is currently owned by people 65 and older (source). 

I don't know what's behind this relentless attack on the DNR and public land but the arguments justifying it just don't hold up.