By Douglas Burns
Francis Thicke brings book of ideas to secretary of ag race
Francis Thicke says the Iowa Secretary of Agriculture should be full of big ideas.
And this Fairfield-area Democrat is traveling the state — with a freshly published 124-page book in hand, “A New Vision for Food and Agriculture” — detailing a smorgasbord of ideas from a lifetime in agriculture.
“I see we have some major challenges facing Iowa agriculture,” Thicke, 59, said. “It seems to me that we’re not really addressing these challenges.”
The bottom line, Thicke said, is that more profits from agriculture need to go into farmers’ pockets.
“Too often now I think that the wealth created by agriculture is extracted out of the rural communities, off the farm, by corporate interests,” Thicke (pronounced “tick-ee”) said during an interview.
Thicke, who says he’s not a politician by nature, is challenging first-term incumbent Republican Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey in the November election.
Thicke said with agriculture so central to Iowa, voters are smart enough to separate the ag secretary’s race from the winds of national politics and potential trends up-ticket statewide. In short, he wants to make the race about ag issues, pure and simple.
One of his priorities is an aggressive approach to promoting individualized wind-energy on Iowa farms.
“I think that we need to look at the next generation of wind development, and that is more farmer-owned where the profits stay local,” Thicke said. “What I’m calling for is mid-sized wind turbines on farms all across Iowa.”
It makes no sense for farmers to pay retail rates for electricity, he said.
Thicke said farm-based turbines could change that.
“They could eliminate their power bill and make it a profit center for the farm,” he said.
There are ways to get this done with feed-in tariffs in which power companies have to pay higher rates of return until the farms have mid-sized wind turbines paid off and then the prices drop down for the utilities.
“Now the power company has cheap green energy for the lifetime of that turbine,” Thicke said. “Meanwhile, the farmer has electricity paid for the farm and also has a profit center for the farm.”
He said the legislature could get involved to make that happen.
Thicke said government needs to be involved because of capital-cost issues. It’s expensive to bring wind energy onto farms, and if legislation were in place mandating power companies pay higher rates to farmers at the outset, initial investments in turbines would be more possible.
“That would allow them to pay for this up front,” Thicke said.
Thicke also sees major potential in more home-grown food in the Iowa economy. As it stands, he said, about 80 percent of the $8 billion worth of food consumed annually in Iowa comes from out of state.
“Again, our wealth is really being taken out of the state just for our food,” Thicke said.
He said growing more food represents a multi-billion-dollar economic-development opportunity.
On the issue of large animal confinements — Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) — Thicke said the Iowa Legislature should return authority to decide where they can be built to local government with overall environmental regulation remaining with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
Thicke, 59, and his wife, Susan, operate an 80-cow, grass-based organic farm northwest of Fairfield.
He is a native of La Crescent, Minn., and one of nine children raised on a family dairy-and-grain operation of 212 acres — which is now operated by a brother.
Thicke earned a bachelor’s degree in music and philosophy from Winona (Minn.) State University, a master’s in soil science from the University of Minnesota and a doctorate in agronomy-soil fertility from the University of Illinois. Thicke worked at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., after earning his doctorate. He was involved with soil science for the USDA’s Extension Service. In 1992, Thicke and his wife returned to the farming operation they own today. CV
Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa newspaperman who writes for The Carroll Daily Times Herald and offers columns for Cityview.
