On a bright, September day in Steve Semken’s Ice Cube Press driveway in Iowa City, I am humbled to see the farmer on the cover of the book ― exiting the barn, head down with his hand resting lightly on the back of the gentle jersey.
What was he thinking? We can’t know, but his words have been pulled together in the newly published book “We Can Do Better: Collected Writings on Land, Conservation, and Public Policy” by Paul W. Johnson, edited by Curt Meine. When I’ve asked Curt about the three years of weaving together these pieces he speaks of having continued conversations with my father as he guides the reader through the arc of his life, work and writings and the development of his thinking around land conservation.
Many may recognize Paul Johnson on the cover, the Iowa farmer, former Iowa legislator, former chief of the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, former head of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, speaker and writer. Many may be interested to read in this collection his often gentle, sometimes fierce, and always passionate words about the land. Readers may ponder with Paul the responsibility we have to respect land, to engage in conversation about how to protect it, and to preach (almost) about always leaving all of it, soil, water, air, plants and animals, just a little bit better than we find it.
My dad practiced what he preached on our small family farm in northeast Iowa. Here we grew crops, Christmas trees, alfalfa and straw, milked cows and raised sheep, kept chickens and horses, planted tree after tree on exposed slopes, harvested and put up fruits and vegetables to feed ourselves. Dad, Mom, and my brothers Eric and Andy and I grew and rooted ourselves here. As Curt writes, “In later years, when Paul was asked what he and Pat grew on their farm, he would promptly answer: children.“
Over the past three months I have been home on the farm (far from my second home in Göteborg, Sweden) to support the launch of “We Can Do Better.” In this time I have seen how Iowa’s water and soil are at the top of people’s minds these days. Paul Johnson wrote in 1985, “Water is common to all living things. Polluted water under our farms and in our streams does not go away. It becomes a part of us.” And if that is not enough to be anxious about, then it’s the fact that there is no Chinese market for Iowa soybeans. Forty years ago, my father wrote that “The overwhelming issue in the state house the first two weeks of this (1985 legislative) session has been the farm crisis.” There is not a day we don’t read about the water and soil and farm struggles in the paper or hear about them on the news. The stories transcend our state boundaries and flood the states around us; but even more, the stories transcend decades of changing politics and countless coffee-conversations. Same, same, but different? There is a lot of frustration and anger. How do we move forward?
In fact, that is what hits me deeply as I read my dad’s words in “We Can Do Better”; I hear him leading by example to be kind, respectful and treat others as we would treat our neighbors. I hear stories of his crossing partisan lines, always working with others to do what’s right by the land, by the people, and by our Iowa communities. Nearly five years after his passing, his words remind me that he always created a human connection using a genuine, pragmatic, and informative tone. In his writing, as he was in person, he is not condescending. He is not impatient. He is not rude.
Instead, his words invite you to join him out on the front porch in the sunshine over a cup of coffee and ponder together what is happening in the world. He shares how he feels about it and why he chooses action and moves forward in the way that he does. “I voted against the new tax law. Let me tell you why,” he writes to the local papers giving his reasons for doing so in “Tax Law a Compromise” (1987): “To those of you who may be angry because of my vote I am sorry.” In these writings, he humbly asks for your consideration of his ideas and what you think about them. Will you join him to help make things better for the land and for our neighbors and for people around us ― those who have and those who have not, those who can speak up and those who can not?
I hear a lot about “Iowa nice” and “Iowa nasty” these days. Dad would be very sad to see and hear this happening. There are lessons in his history and his choice to enter public service to affect change. I hope people will read the book to learn from that.
But there is another reason to buy the book, to read (listen) to these words. Perhaps even more important to me as his daughter, as a mother of one of his six granddaughters, and as a human being are the subtle and quiet lessons reflected in the words he no longer speaks, but that we can only read. His tone, his kindness, his intentions, his values and his humanity remind me that we must rekindle the neighborly, empathetic Iowan in each of us. We can be genuine, while being candid. We can be pragmatic, while being nice. We Can Do Better.
Annika Johnson is a Decorah native, who resides part of the year on the family farm in Iowa and part of the year in Göteborg, Sweden. Contact: annikaannarbor@gmail.com.
The Johnson Center for Land Stewardship Policy (www.landcommunity.org) will be hosting a book launch at Prairie Lights Bookstore, Iowa City, on Friday, Dec. 12 at 7 p.m.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: My dad led on conservation, and his ideas and kindness can still be a model | Opinion
Reporting by Annika Johnson / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
