Fall 2009

[ BACK ]

Four Student's Views: 'What Green Means to Me"

Young Iowa Staters (from left to right) Danika Schaaf, Nate Looker, Emily Eggleston and Richard Kann offer their take on what it means to be green.

Global collaboration key to achieving sustainability
By Nate Looker

By definition, efforts to be "green" aim to use our finite resources in a way that minimizes harm and allows for indefinite continuation into the future. After half a century of environmental advocacy, much of U.S. society recognizes the sensibility of sustainability.

In the Andean highlands of Peru, the villagers of Colpar have known since time immemorial to preserve what the earth has provided them. At 11,000 feet above sea level, life wouldn't be possible any other way. As a World Food Prize Borlaug-Ruan Intern there in 2008, I saw how the diversification of crops and varieties allows farmers to minimize losses to pests, while safeguarding genetic resources. To maintain soil fertility and moisture in communal fields, farmers rotate 118 varieties of potato with a six-year fallow.

Although this system has sustained Andean farmers for generations, hunger prevails. Changing economic models, population growth and climate change all underscore the need for development, a word itself as nebulous as "green."

Last summer, I traveled to Kamuli, Uganda, through ISU's Service Learning Program. Partnering with Ugandan college students, we conducted a project in sustainable development. In Uganda, war and AIDS have disrupted the transfer of indigenous knowledge. To overcome this void, we drew primary school students' attention to local materials that can be fashioned into traditional beehives. Investing only time and energy, students can produce lucrative honey to sell for food and school fees.

Ultimately, nations' paths to development will be immensely complex, as will our way through the impending challenges climate change presents us. This complexity begs collaboration: while a technological transfer could increase food security for a farmer abroad, indigenous adaptation to the land could teach us a valuable lesson when devising green technologies that are appropriate for our population size and economic needs.

Nate Looker is a junior in agronomy and global resource systems. Focusing on agroecology and Latin America, he hopes to return to the region to further study diversified farming in the Andes.

Preservation of soil and water necessary to be green
By Richard Kann

When most people think of the green movement they see hybrid vehicles, ethanol plants, solar panels and wind turbines. When I think of the green movement I see conserving our two most important natural resources; soil and water. Coming from a farm on the bluffs of the Mississippi, I have seen the soil scoured by both human and environmental actions, and the water polluted by the changing landscape. Through agronomy and agriculture systems technology courses at Iowa State, and my involvement in organizations such as Ducks Unlimited and the Soil and Water Conservation Society I have discovered the potential to conserve these vital resources. These two resources produce the food we eat and the fluids we drink. If we look at "green" from the standpoint of protecting our environment, I believe soil and water should be some of our biggest concerns.

There are many solutions I believe will come about in helping to preserve our soil and protect our water. Efficiently producing ethanol or electricity with the use of biomass will help protect our soil. And using biomass crops such as miscanthus or switchgrass allows us to farm environmentally sensitive areas, improve soil quality and provide carbon sequestration.

Another way of going green to improve the quality of our soil is the use of precision farming technology. The Midwest is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world, but it requires us to use commercial fertilizers in order to produce record yields. According to fertilizer.org the production of commercial fertilizers accounts for just below two percent of the world's energy use. By taking soil samples, grid mapping and using variable rate technology we can apply nutrients at crop removal rates, allowing for more efficient, economic and environmentally friendly application of nutrients.

A final green solution to improving the quality of our water is using earth's natural filters. Wetlands are one of the most productive ecosystems in the world, and act like kidneys for the land. They harness the ability to filter out unwanted chemicals and nutrients before the water enters our lakes and streams. They can be cost effective, aesthetically pleasing and help protect our nutrient rich streams.

Richard Kann is a senior in agricultural systems technology with a minor in agronomy. He currently serves as president of the Soil & Water Conservation Club, student chair for the Iowa Soil & Water Conservation Society and treasurer of ISU Ducks Unlimited.

Conserving water, food a green way to meet human needs
By Danika Schaaf

Over the past summer, I spent two months in India for an internship. During my stay, I observed the effects of food scarcity on India's people and learned about India's problems with water shortages. As a result of my experiences, I feel that being "green" means conserving common resources, such as food and water, as wisely as possible and being aware of how one's actions affect others.

According to the New York Times, it is estimated that in America twenty-seven percent of consumable food is thrown away annually. By contrast, "more than 25 million Americans . . . receive emergency food assistance each year from the America's Second Harvest Network." Although this situation may seem to be a paradox, this problem is not unique to the U.S. On an individual and large-scale level, there are many ways one may prevent food from turning into waste. For example, one way an individual may reduce his food waste is by using leftovers before they spoil. On a larger scale, ISU is partnering with the ISU Research Farms to turn food scraps into compost (read more on page 21).

Next, the conservation of water resources is an important aspect of being green. According to the World Health Organization, water scarcity affects one in three people on each continent. One solution to this problem may lie in adopting a wider variety of methods for water conservation. As an example, households in India use roof-top rainwater harvesting to conserve water. To collect water, the roofs of houses are first covered with tin and drainage systems are installed so that when it rains rainwater runs from the roof of the house and into storage tanks. Since India has wide-spread problems with water scarcity, roof-top rainwater harvesting helps ensure individuals have adequate supplies in times of drought.

Danika Schaaf is a freshman in global resource systems. She plans to focus her studies on Asia and learn about the ecotechnology systems there in hopes that she may work in China and India.

Living green as easy as 1-2-3
By Emily Eggleston

Whether growing corn or buying bananas, the same overarching concepts of "living green" apply. As an agronomist and citizen of Iowa, the U.S. and Earth, I think there are three essential steps to green living:

Step 1: Be aware of every choice you make. When you buy a banana, you choose to eat fruit. You also choose between conventional or fair trade, disposable or reusable grocery bags, and composting the peel or throwing it away. Some produce sections do not offer fair trade fruit and almost every store will provide you with a plastic bags but accepting the most prolific option, whether in the grocery store or in agriculture, means that sometimes "greener" choices are implicitly rejected.

Step 2: Know the environmental impact of each choice. If you googled the implications of adding your banana peel to the garbage, you'd find that, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. has produced more and more trash per person every year since 1960. The EPA also states that the majority of our garbage is organic (compostable) material and agriculturalists know that matter can be much more useful when it's not tied in a plastic bag and buried in a landfill. Composting a banana peel may seem like a small decision, but the logic rings true for the largest agricultural corporation, knowing the environmental impact of our choices keeps our world "greener."

Step 3: Decide which choice is best by using "land ethic" as a guide. Environmental philosopher Aldo Leopold wrote that society's ethical guidelines encourage us to cooperate with our human community but, he argued, by ecological necessity we must also live cooperatively with soils, water, plants and animals. Leopold coined the term "land ethic" to describe the new ethical boundaries for decision-making and I consider the ideal essential for making environmentally sound choices.

Emily Eggleston ('09 agronomy and environmental science) spent the summer co-managing an organic community supported agriculture (CSA) farm in Atlantic, Iowa.