Bruce seems to be passionate about inflicting Big Ag upon small farmers in Tanzania. What everyone (including ISU) has failed to ask themselves is this: Is this model of using patented seeds with LOTS of petro chemical based pesticides/herbicides good for the people of Tanzania? I find Rastetter and his cheerleaders at ISU (and even the Des Moines Register editorial board) to be very patronizing when it comes to the country of Tanzania. We sit here in Iowa with depleted top soils, flooding due to monoculture agriculture and polluted waterways and we want to tell THEM how to grow food? Nonsense.

Kate, you clearly don't have a clue. Obviously when they were doing all this they met with the people of the area and got their input. Bruce is a great guy he helps a lot of people, and is a very good business man not to mention. Stop the witch hunt when you guys are clearly don't have any of the facts. The people of Tanzania could benefit greatly with a bigger, better food supply. Don't hate people of success just because they did well for themselves.

I'm sure he's a peach of a guy and he is welcome to his riches---just not at the expense of natural resources and the people of Tanzania and their freedom to not get caught in a land grab and the net of Big Ag, patented seeds and petro-chemicals. Check out: http://farmlandgrab.org/cat/show/62
to educate yourself a little more about this complex topic.

As the United States becomes more aware of how bad industrialized ag is for our health and environment, the entrepreneur knows his choice for expansion is a vulnerable country like Tanzania. Just like Kelloggs is planning to expand their snack food market to developing countries. The people of these countries not obese yet from industrialized and cheap food products.

Without industrial ag you wouldn't have food and if you did you'd be paying thru the roof prices for it. It is no longer the 1800's. There are 7 billion people world-wide that need food to survive. Good luck growing the amounts needed with a hoe and horse drawn plow.

+1, Kate! I agree with you. There are unintended consequences to many decisions that seem beneficial to all concerned at first blush. For example, donating clothing to Africa, I understand, undercuts local clothing manufacturers. When we donated clothing to Pakistan after their floods, people left the clothes in huge piles, untouched, because they needed tents, shelter, instead. They needed plastic tarps.

Unintended consequences such as those caused by forcing people out of their homes, using toxic substances that poison the earth, and using up land without thinking through the consequences must be considered.

Parker, that may be true. However, industrial ag has negative consequences, such as the farm runoff of toxic chemicals that continues to enlarge the Dead Zone at the southern end of the Mississippi River. Plowing most of our state from border to border to raise crops leaves the state unprotected by buffers of spongy land growing trees and bushes to soak up flood waters. Buffers are needed but the financial incentives to grow crops instead make land buffers few and far between.

Absolutely clueless. I'm sure none of you have ever dealt with anything that has to do with a farm or growing crops. All you think you know is what you read on the Internet and or on tv. I don't know what you think the alternative is don't grow food for the 7 billion? Maybe if we could get the ever exploding population under control we wouldn't have to work so hard to grow food.

Parker, your response is a redirection and an insult without responding to Kate's and my concerns. I don't have to be a brain surgeon to know that head injuries are bad for people. I read extensively, as I'm sure Kate does as well, and the Dead Zone caused by farm chemical runoff, which kills all or most forms of life at the southern end of the Mississippi River, is common knowledge or should be.

Do I know about no-till farming, and do I understand the reasons for it? Yes I do. Have I seen severe erosion in farm fields that should be terraced to provide some sort of buffer for water runoff on hillsides? Yes I have.

Calling people clueless because they don't agree with you is not just obnoxious but probably sexist, besides.

I'm not going to uncritically accept industrial ag as an unalleviated benefit to all when I know better, and neither should you.

As the population exploded technology had to improve to keep up with the ever growing demand. I'm calling you clueless because all of you are going off of what you read and that's exactly what you just told me. You have no first hand experience in any of this. Farmers care about the environment too. They don't want to see their soil run off either because that's their livelihood, and as far as the chemical statement so much is being grow to feed the ever growing demand so many you can't simple send out enough people cost effectively to weed and cultivate the ground over all the millions of acres. Farmers have to be able to make money and stay afloat just like anyone else does. Without the things that farmers do therfossils not be enough food. Is there things that could improve.... Yes. As a farmer myself I know we have multiple filter strips right next to the river so it's not like we don't try. Don't even try to bring sex into this. It's about your expertise in the area.

Iowa Ethics bored just ruled in this case: dismissed. http://ames.patch.com/articles/ethics-complaint-dismissed-against-regent-bruce-rastetter

Great news

Bruce Rastetter wanted his day in "court"; he wanted "the process to work." Our point at CCI is that the process DOESN'T work. If government worked, would Congress have a 9% or 10% approval rating? Our oligarchy, formerly a republic, serves the wealthy and the powerful, not the people.

+1, Brian Morelli! I love your "Iowa Ethics bored . . . " characterization. The Iowa Ethics bored is a joke.

Brian, maybe "bored" was a Freudian slip? I definitely prefer "bored" to board when you're talking about Iowa's pathetic Ethics and Campaign Board.

Parker, I know enough about farming to know a pig when I see one.

:]