Iowa Republican ag hopefuls go to convention

Jun 08, 2018

None of the five candidates received the necessary support to win the nomination

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

Iowa Republicans will hold a convention on June 16 to decide who will represent the party in the race to become Iowa’s next Secretary of Agriculture.

Incumbent Mike Naig, who Gov. Kim Reynolds appointed as ag secretary in March, received 34.74 percent of the votes in Tuesday’s primaries. That number is just shy of the 35 percent needed to secure the nomination.

The other four candidates, which include a senator, a former president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, a member of President Trump’s ag advisory committee and a former Iowa State Extension watershed specialist, also failed to break the 35 percent support threshold.

The nominees aren’t surprised by the results given the crowded field.

“With five candidates in the race, we all knew it would be difficult to win outright by reaching the 35 percent threshold,” Craig Lang, past president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, said in a statement after Tuesday’s results.

Naig, who served as under secretary to Bill Northey before taking a position within the USDA, is optimistic he can earn the support of his peers next week.

“Iowa Republicans sent a clear message, and that’s that they’re pleased with the direction we’re headed and the job we’re doing,” he told the Des Moines Register Wednesday. “We won 60 counties and topped 30,000 votes. That far outpaces the other candidates.”

Whoever earns the Republican nomination will run against Democratic candidate Tim Gannon, a former USDA administrator, in November.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.