A group of Story and Boone county farmers and 11 Iowa legislators have sent a letter to ISU President Gregory Geoffroy questioning the recent land purchases of Iowa State and an affiliated committee.

The letter was drafted after the state Senate received complaints from several farmers that Iowa State’s research may have overstepped its bounds, said Iowa Sen. Jerry Behn, R-Boone, chairman of the Senate agriculture committee.

Neighbors of ISU-purchased farmland are concerned with the amount of land the Committee for Agricultural Development is buying and don’t like the idea of competing with a state university for seed production, Behn said.

“We just want to know what are they [Iowa State] doing buying all the land, while still raising tuition,” said Iowa Sen. Mark Zieman, R-Postville.

Other concerns addressed in the letter include the Committee for Agricultural Development’s (CAD) connection with the university, the university’s advantage over farmers for buying land, CAD’s motive for buying land and ways the land is being used after it is bought.

Brian Meyer, program director of agricultural information services, said CAD is a nonprofit committee that has operated since 1943. The committee makes seed available publicly and buy land for ISU agriculture research, he said.

CAD’s mission is to produce crop seeds developed from ISU research to the public and to acquire “adequate land” for agricultural research purposes.

But many of the state legislators are questioning the definition of “adequate land.” The university does not need that much land for their operations, Zieman said.

“The problem is that they [Iowa State] own 15,000 acres with the … goal of research; they are not using all 15,000 for research, and it is impossible to track [if the land is being used for research],” Behn said. He said the university may be using its sizable budget to outbid farmers for land the university may need in the future.

In Geoffroy’s response letter, he addressed this issue, writing, “The university has a set of goals and framework for agricultural land management.” This land-use plan “outlines goals for efficient land use that are compatible with the university’s agricultural teaching and research requirements and the urban development for Ames.”

‘They have money’

The plan was written in 1996 and approved by the Board of Regents, said Del Koch, who works in CAD’s budget and finance office.

According to a summary of ownership of agricultural land used by Iowa State, CAD owns 3,445 acres out of 16,632 acres used by Iowa State.

Many of the farmers’ complaints stem from a recent CAD purchase in southern Story County east of Madrid. CAD bought land next to one of its current lots.

Meyer explained CAD purchased this land in accordance with the land-use plan.

“When a tract comes up, you better get it,” Koch said, explaining this piece of land has not been up for sale for a many years.

Farmers also have additional worries when it comes to CAD owning land around their farmland. Wayne Erickson, 73, farms close to the CAD land near Madrid.

“The university has not been a good neighbor,” he said. “They used to pile dead hogs near the road and when the rendering truck broke down [last summer] — it would be bad.”

Erickson has been farming since the 1940s and owns three farms around Story County. Farmers like Erickson believe Iowa State and affiliated groups have an advantage over the rural farmer. “They have money, lots of money. When it came to bidding, there was no stopping them,” he said.

While Erickson and CAD were bidding on the same estate, Koch said they were bidding on different plots. “CAD was not bidding against a private farmer,” he said. “We bid against a corporation and an out-of-state investor for the plots we bought.”

Koch addressed the notion CAD had “bottomless pockets.”

“We must live within our own means and generate revenues,” he said.

Food-grade soybeans are specialized for foods including tofu, which is a popular export to countries such as Japan, Koch said. CAD’s food-grade production uses the research of an ISU faculty member, Walt Fehr, to increase his breeder seed to make it available to farmers who want to grow food-grade soybeans.

“We want to keep the food-grade business going,” Koch said.

However, the crops CAD has been growing have temporarily changed. Last year was the first year CAD was producing mainly general-use crops, in place of the food-grade production crops they had been growing.

In 2001, CAD lost more than $143,000 due to a virus, which drastically reduced yields, Koch said. The bean leaf beetle was “devastating to our crops,” he said.

The beetle is not so devastating for general-use production, which is what most Iowa farmers grow, Koch said.

In food-grade production, the only chemicals used on the soybeans are those that treat weeds, and no pesticides such as Roundup are used. The beetle bites the leaves and also puts a virus into the plants that reduces the yields.

Koch said he sees this as a “blip in the radar.” CAD is supporting research into this virus so production can continue on CAD land.

The beetle has been spreading across Iowa from south to northeast, Koch said. In order to keep the production of food-grade soybeans going, CAD has contracted farmers in northern Iowa to produce their soybeans. CAD then buys the beans at a premium.

“This is expensive,” he said.

Because of this virus, much of the CAD land has gone to general-use production, Koch said. “If they looked at our production of general-use soybeans in 2002, it would be a poor representation. We are trying to solve this [beetle] problem,” he said.

Ties to Iowa State

CAD’s revenues from 2002 commodity soybean sales helped to support the production of food-grade seed elsewhere, according to the Farmland fact sheet distributed by the ISU Department of Agriculture.

“They are trying to leave the impression that they don’t think they are out of line,” Behn said.

Both Koch and Meyer said the farmers are not dealing with a university, but rather a nonprofit organization. CAD has a board of trustees comprised of people associated with the seed and agriculture business and ISU administrators, Koch said.

Koch is the business manager of CAD and is also the director of budget and finance for the Department of Agriculture, Meyer said.

Although Koch is a university employee, “40 percent of my salary is paid for by CAD,” he said.

“CAD reimburses the university for every penny of costs and benefits,” he added.

This is the case for the other university-employed members of the CAD board as well. Employees of CAD, not the university, do the food-grade soybean production, Koch said.

Meyer said CAD exists to help the College of Agriculture with the land issue.

“They take care of the day-by-day operation so the researchers can focus on the work,” he said.