#130 | Community-Driven Conservation: Bridging Gaps, Building Resilience Artwork

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The Water Table

#130 | Community-Driven Conservation: Bridging Gaps, Building Resilience

June 24, 2025 • Jamie Duininck • Episode 130

We're diving deeper with Ruth McCabe, Heartland Co-Op Conservation Manager, to explore how Heartland Co-Op is tackling gaps in federal funding for ag conservation. Learn about their sustainability-linked loans and a new non-profit fund designed to empower tenant farmers and fund local conservation projects. We'll also discuss the growing demand for state-led alternatives to programs like CRP, and which practices are making farms more resilient to extreme weather.

Chapters:
00:00 Introducing the Heartland Conservation Fund
00:22 Resilient Soil: A Conservation Benefit
01:04 Heartland Co-op's Expanding Team & New Loan
02:08 Funding Tenant Farmers Through the Non-Profit
03:32 Partnership-Based Funding Model
04:26 Private Solutions Amidst Federal Shifts
05:22 Alternative to CRP: A Local Approach
06:42 The Power of Local Community & Engagement
08:19 Farmer Perspectives: Seeing Conservation Results
09:26 Weather Patterns and Insurance Impact
11:18 Conservation for Resilience, Not Just Yield
14:13 Tailored Solutions for Every Farm
15:17 Heartland's Micro-Level Innovations
16:33 Iowa's Macro-Level Conservation Leadership
18:19 Collaborative Federal Agency Support
19:06 Iowa's Unexpected Conservation Success
20:32 Overcoming Obstacles: Pushing Past "No"
22:10 Public Land Access vs. Private Land Opportunity
23:51 Hunting Leases and Landowner Benefits
25:19 Building Relationships Through Access
26:06 The Nuance of Conservation and Dialogue

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Ruth McCabe (00:00):

We can start helping tenant farmers specifically. There's all of these private organizations that are stepping forward now that all these federal programs just poof, they're gone. It's whatever floats your boat, different strokes for different folks. It's every field and farmer is different. In-field practices make your soil so much more resilient. I think 10 years from now, Iowa is going to be the standard, the gold standard for how to get these locally-led private lands conservation initiatives off the ground.

Jamie Duininck (00:25):

Welcome back to The Water Table for our fourth part of the conversation with Ruth McCabe.

(00:33):

I asked you before you came in just a little bit of, because Heartland Co-op is really, in regards to what's happening with conservation and agriculture, you guys are always on the forefront of that, which is exciting and thank you for that. But so what's new in the world of Heartland Co-op when it comes to conservation agriculture?

Ruth McCabe (00:54):

Great question. We've got a lot going on. My team is expanding. I think I talked about this the last time I was on, and that still stands. I'm going to be hiring more conservation agronomists, which is a good problem to have.

(01:06):

This last winter, we launched our sustainability linked loan with CoBank. So not a lot of people know who CoBank is because CoBank is a more of a third tier lender to agricultural institutions like ag retailers like Heartland. So they are the ones who loan us money. And we launched a sustainability linked loan with them where what we do is we go after certain key performance indicators, metrics that we've chosen ahead of time, like cover crops, outlets treated with saturated buffers, those kinds of things. And if we hit those goals, then they reduce our company's interest on our operating loan.

(01:39):

Now, the beauty of this is that now we have this stream of income that we've already technically paid. It's like forcing us to save money because we get that money back, but it's basically forcing us to save that money and we are going to be using that money to invest in a small endowment fund that we will be creating a... The Heartland Conservation Fund, that we'll be creating a nonprofit to support so that we can start helping tenant farmers specifically. That's the idea here, is to really assist tenant farmers with those short term costs to adopt infield conservation practices or to help a landowner with maybe an expense associated with a wetland or something that they didn't anticipate.

(02:21):

So it's not going to be a massive endowment fund. We're not talking like the Walton Foundation or something. We're not going to have that kind of capital, but we are going to be using this money to help fund small conservation projects, local regional projects in Iowa and specifically aiming it towards assisting tenant farmers with adopting practices and landowners adopting things like edge of field practices.

(02:43):

So we're excited about that fund. It hasn't launched yet, but I'm allowed to talk about it now. I wasn't allowed to talk about it up to two weeks ago. But we are definitely the first retailer to try something like this, and so it is very weird. Your girl does not know how to make a nonprofit, but I am learning, along with everybody else on my team. So we're excited about being able to launch it and do some fundraising for it and we'll be using a lot of the money that comes from our sustainability linked loan then. So my team has to continue to hustle to hit those KPIs and then we're going to use that money to seed it basically and serve as match for when we go out and fundraise.

Jamie Duininck (03:20):

What does fundraising for that look like?

Ruth McCabe (03:22):

Oh, man, I don't know. I'm learning as I go. I told you, I'm learning as I go. We'll probably be going around and asking organizations who want to partner with boots on the ground. We are boots on the ground, right? With boots on the ground teams like my own, we're going to be asking, "If we can put so much forward to match, will you match that?" And probably be basing it around physical installation of practices.

(03:49):

So there'll be sort of maybe an agreement where we say, "Look, we'll put 20,000 towards this if you can put 20,000 towards this and our goal will be another 30 outlets treated with saturated buffers," or whatever. I'm shooting from the hip, as you said, with those numbers, but some sort of partnership.

(04:03):

Which, to be fair, that is how my team is funded right now. My team is funded through partnerships where we get practices in the ground and then you pay us for those practices. We're just like a sales agronomist. It's just we're not selling bags and jugs, we're selling physical in the ground practices. Only now we're going to be asking partners potentially if they want to kick money into this endowment fund instead, so that we have this continual source of funding.

(04:27):

Because let's be clear, and we don't have to verge too far into this, but with everything that's happening, say, at the federal level with conservation funding, there've been a lot of projects here in the last month that have disappeared into the ether, where people were getting funding and now they're not. And this is where my inner conservative comes out too, because I want to see states have a greater ability to leverage money internally to support conservation agriculture. Maybe it won't be quite as lucrative as what you could get from a federal conservation contract, whatever that looks like from the NRCS or whatever. But I'd like to see states be able to do something with state raised money to support conservation transition in their states.

(05:07):

And I feel like what Heartland is doing is one avenue. batch and build is another avenue. But there's all of these private organizations that are stepping forward now that all these federal programs like the Climate-Smart Commodities projects and anything under the Inflation Reduction Act of just poof, they're gone. There's a lot of private companies we're seeing step forward and they're going, "Okay, now's the time. We can step into this space. Let's step into this space and come up with something comparable."

(05:31):

For example, here's an example. I would love to see an alternative to CRP in Iowa, for example. With the saturated buffers that I'm putting in, a lot of the landowners who participate in the program, they'll do it, but only if they can also enroll that filter strip above ground in CRP. Well, CRP is not open and it hasn't been for a while, at least not in our neck of the woods.

(05:54):

Those landers, it's like I don't want to say to them, "Well, we can't enroll filter strip in CRP, so you're not going to do the program?" I want to be able to say to them, "Okay, how about this alternative? I've raised it a little bit of money. It's not quite as much as what you'd get from a tenure contract, but it's close. How about we pay you this instead? You sign a simple maintenance agreement. That gets housed with your local conservation district." And that's an alternative to CRP. Now, you don't have to go to the local office, you don't have to deal with any federal contracts. That's actually really attractive to a lot of landowners. Not all of them, but a lot of them, different strokes for different folks. So that's kind of a granular example of that's what I want to see come out of all of this federal upheaval. Okay, I'm done now.

Jamie Duininck (06:32):

Yeah. Well, yeah, it makes a lot of sense. And if you can find a place... Farmers and landowners are, I don't want to use the word trained, but they know and they have the ability to find these programs and they should. If they're not going to farm that land and not going to get that income off from there, then they're looking for other ways to do that, and it makes a lot of sense if that's not open. And CRP has been hard to do a lot of because of the farm bill and lack thereof of a farm bill, and so then it's open and it's closed and it's open and it's closed. So if you can do that more on the local level-

Ruth McCabe (07:16):

Absolutely.

Jamie Duininck (07:17):

... it makes some sense.

Ruth McCabe (07:18):

Yeah, funding locally where there's faces and there's people that are familiar with the organizations that are funding it, I think it just builds a network and a community that's more invested in the program too. Our batch and build, for example, that we do, we hold winter banquets for all the people who participate in our batch and builds, and you should see these things. Oh, man, it's a whole thing. It's a circus and it's so exciting. And everybody's really excited and they get to know each other, neighbors shaking hands, "Oh, you participated in the program? I had no idea." It's a whole movement and energy.

(07:49):

And the cool thing is it's all locally led, right? It's neighbors talking to neighbors or it's us going out and knocking on doors. And then the next thing you know at the winter banquet, people are talking about how excited they are to go out and see the water moving through their drainage control structures. And I know it sounds really nerdy, but they get really excited about it and then I get excited because I'm like, "Yes, you should be excited. Clean water."

Jamie Duininck (08:09):

Yeah, but they do because they can't see it until then.

Ruth McCabe (08:12):

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jamie Duininck (08:13):

When they can see the same thing with wetlands. I think people look at it and say, "Man, we're putting in so much work and time and effort and money," and then when we can't see it, that's why it's easier to buy a nice tractor than to-

Ruth McCabe (08:32):

Yeah, absolutely.

Jamie Duininck (08:33):

Because you can be proud of it. But once it's done and there's either an outlet or that buffer strip or a wetland, which a lot of... I've been around a long time and I've heard it almost all the time is farmers aren't against conservation.

Ruth McCabe (08:49):

No.

Jamie Duininck (08:49):

And a lot of times if there's the right place on a great 80 or quarter, they want to leave that for water quality, for the wildlife, whatever it might be.

Ruth McCabe (09:01):

By far, the biggest advocates for our edge of field programs are tenant farmers that have come to us, as I said earlier, and said, "I want you to talk to my landowner about this." So they are by far our biggest recruiters for us, so yeah.

Jamie Duininck (09:16):

So another thing we talked about before we went on air was just kind of weather patterns and what's happening, and a lot of that connects to conservation too, right? And what we are really talking about is here we are spring of 2025, it's dry in Iowa. You drove up, you drove through some really wet areas of Minnesota, but it's dry here too.

(09:39):

And we've been seeing this more where we're getting the same amount of rain in a year. We're getting it all within a certain period of time. And for obvious reasons, conservation practices are even more important-

Ruth McCabe (09:54):

Absolutely.

Jamie Duininck (09:54):

... when you're seeing those kinds of things, both from the standpoint of drought resistance and from when it rains too much and having erosion and things like that. So anything to add to that?

Ruth McCabe (10:06):

Oh, yeah. I could go, again, there's so many things to say about the subject. I'll start with the fact that we talked about, you and I were talking about this before we started recording, but there's a movement in the insurance industry to start, like housing insurance, for example, to start charging higher deductibles, for example, for certain events in different parts of the country like in Nebraska and Iowa. And I speak personally because I just got this letter yesterday from my insurance company telling me that they're raising my deductible in the event of hail or wind damage because these events have become so... They're not as necessarily common, but they are far more severe when they do happen in Iowa that now the insurance company's like, "We're losing too much money on this, so we're raising deductibles on this particular instance." And in Florida with flooding, good luck getting flood insurance. Or in California, good luck finding housing insurance that's going to give you fire protection.

(10:57):

So I think the writing is on the wall there. Regardless of how you feel about "climate change," we can acknowledge that there are weather events that are becoming more severe when they happen. And one of the things I love about conservation practices, in-field practices make your soil so much more resilient to when these intense storms happen. And the idea here is resiliency.

(11:19):

Again, I don't think about in-field practices as something that's just going to magically raise your yield and it's going to be amazing for your operation. Yeah, long term they usually, practices in the long-term wind up making a farm more profitable. A lot of times that's because they make the fields more resilient in extreme weather conditions.

(11:38):

Great example is those farmers I told you about. 2019, they were able to plant because they had cover crop out there that was soaking up all that excess moisture. In a year like that, that's a flipping game changer. So you can make money back hand over fist in those kinds of years. It makes your fields more resilient.

(11:55):

Edge of field practices, those filter strips and buffer strips in a severe year where you've got some crazy storm washing over your soil surface, that would remove gobs of soil from your field, you now have a filter strip to capture all that. It just catches it at the edge and holds it there, slows it down. Same thing if you're using extreme min till or reduced till, you're just holding that soil where it would wash away before.

(12:19):

And then saturated buffers, in Iowa we can still put our anhydrous down in the fall. I know there's a lot of changes in Minnesota that depending on where you farm, that's not an option. But we get these gushers in the late fall when our soil isn't frozen yet or you're losing all that nitrogen that you put down. Without getting into the talks about economics, your saturated buffer or your bioreactor is capturing a lot of that that would otherwise be lost to the stream.

(12:45):

So again, it just makes our fields more resilient, makes the agricultural system more resilient while still providing some ecosystem services back to the environment. So that's extreme weather events, I think that that's just a reality for us. And moving forward, this is where I see conservation being a real, again, MVP in that conservation practices can make it so that we can continue to produce productively even in an extreme year.

Jamie Duininck (13:09):

Yeah, and I think what we're finding, and it's great to have you on and continue to have you on for these reasons, is that I think some of the reasons why things are the way they are is we haven't changed for so long, and so you keep doing these highly productive ways of doing things. And after a while, the soil can't take it or the water quality can't take it or whatever. So in order to improve that, there is not one silver bullet.

Ruth McCabe (13:38):

No. No.

Jamie Duininck (13:38):

There never will be, and there's probably not five, there's probably 25, 30 things that you can do and you need to do a bunch of them in order to-

Ruth McCabe (13:48):

Yeah, and everybody's going to be different and everybody-

Jamie Duininck (13:50):

Yeah. And has to be for-

Ruth McCabe (13:50):

And has to be. Absolutely. Yeah.

Jamie Duininck (13:52):

There's topography issues. There's-

Ruth McCabe (13:54):

Yep, soil issues. Yes. Yeah. Again, I keep saying this, whatever floats your boat, different strokes for different folks. Every field and farmer is different. And I know that that's a cliche that, again, I get some pushback from environmentalist groups on that, but it's... Well, clearly you don't work in agriculture because if you did, you would agree with that statement completely, because you can walk out and there can be a road separating two fields that have wildly different soil types.

(14:18):

So yeah, it's got to come down to the management system, it's got to come down to the landowner, it's got to come down to the tenure on that land. There's so much that the decision to use or not use a certain practice comes down to. And my only goal is to get everybody who touches farmland in some capacity to think, "Okay, but what could work on this field? Let's try it." Because something is better than nothing.

Jamie Duininck (14:39):

Yeah, and if you want to get really technical, we've seen in the water management side where water moves underground.

Ruth McCabe (14:48):

Oh, yeah. Yep.

Jamie Duininck (14:49):

So some fields are really wet because it's just the way the veins of the earth and the soil are that water moves from one area to another area.

Ruth McCabe (14:50):

Absolutely.

Jamie Duininck (14:59):

And it can move miles. So people think, "Well, why is that field always so wet?" Well, there's reasons we can't explain at times.

Ruth McCabe (15:07):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely, yeah.

Jamie Duininck (15:10):

Good. Well, what as far as what are you most excited about that you guys have, maybe you've already mentioned it, but that you're working on that you see as something that it's starting now, but maybe two, three years from now, it's going to be a big deal for you?

Ruth McCabe (15:26):

I'm excited about, I'll start at the micro level and move to the macro level, but within Heartland, I'm excited about our move into creating this, like I mentioned, this endowment fund because I feel like we've had some projects that have had to be sidelined or just put on the back burner for a lack of funding in a small way. So I really see our endowment fund is a way for us to give back to our local farming communities to make those projects happen, in the absence of other cost share programs that would support them. So I'm excited about that. And we're moving in a way, it's a very bleeding edge and it's always exciting to be at the bleeding edge. So excited about that at the micro level.

(16:04):

And also my company's just expansion into doing more saturated buffers and bioreactors, also expanding our skill set into helping people do more precision conservation. Just exciting that we're moving in those directions. So we're just constantly cutting new swaths and that's exciting.

(16:21):

Now, to move outward and away from Heartland, it is very exciting for me to see, in Iowa as it is right now, all of these private companies coming together with nonprofits and with state, with the Iowa Department of Ag and Land Stewardship, partnering in the most innovative and unique ways and coming up with solutions to things like the CRP problem I mentioned to you, coming up with solutions to that where I'm like, "Excellent alternative opportunity. This is fan-flippin'-tastic." If there's a vacuum, fill it and fill it with something that's even better at the local level. And I'm seeing that with saturated buffers, bioreactors.

(16:55):

Buffer strips, there's a couple of counties that are piloting what we call Buffer batch and builds. So not putting in saturated buffers and bioreactors, just going after fields that could use a buffer or a filter strip and building it the same way in this batch and build model and going after landowners next to each other for miles on end. Super exciting.

(17:16):

And they've developed a sort of CRP-esque payment scheme around it, and it's just super unique and novel. So there's two counties in Iowa that are going to be piloting that this year. Dubuque County is one of them, so proud of Dubuque. But there's another county that hasn't got it off the ground yet, so I won't name them, but in central Iowa.

(17:32):

So those kinds of local initiatives, from my perspective, it's like, first of all, I get envious because I'm like, "That's a good idea, and I wish I'd thought of it." But I'm also like, "Yeah, this is great. Keep it up. Let's just blow them all out of the water and make everybody at the national level like five to 10 years from now be like, "Where the heck did Iowa come out of the rear and they're just owning conservation agriculture?" I admit that I'm a little bloodthirsty in that way and that all I want to do is dominate in the conservation space.

(17:59):

So I'm excited because I really think we're going to get there. I think 10 years from now, Iowa's going to be the standard, the gold standard for how to get these locally-led private lands conservation initiatives off the ground.

(18:09):

And then that brings me to a more national level, what's happening in Iowa but with national. For example, there's a couple of federal agencies, I won't name them because I don't know if I have permission to name that they do this work, but there's a couple of federal agencies that we work with who are helping us do wetland work and oxbow restoration work and in an innovative, unique, cool way where they're providing a lot of the oversight and the auditings to make sure that everything's being done on the up and up, but they're also stepping away and letting these local partners lead the effort to do the oxbow restorations or the wetland work. They're helping in all the ways that a federal agency should help, and then getting out of the way when the local partners need to come together and solve a problem. And it has been so cool to see that happen too. So again, I think a decade from now, Iowa's going to be the gold standard for conservation.

Jamie Duininck (18:56):

Yeah, and it's interesting you say that. I don't disagree at all, but I hadn't really ever thought of it this way. But when Iowa outpaces everyone else, which they already are, but when it just becomes so obvious, it's also somewhat surprising because it is the number one production state too. So there's probably is more tension than I realized there, but-

Ruth McCabe (19:21):

There's a ton. Yeah, there's a ton.

Jamie Duininck (19:23):

It feels like there isn't, right? Because you're doing so much of it, but yet there's the tension of that.

Ruth McCabe (19:27):

Yep.

Jamie Duininck (19:28):

So I think there's probably a story in there and an opportunity in there for some of the rest of us that don't live in Iowa and how we tell that story and how we get other states to start down the same path.

Ruth McCabe (19:42):

I want other states to believe they can do it. I've gone to the Delmarva, which is the, that's out in the Chesapeake Bay, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. So I've given presentations in the Delmarva Peninsula to different soil conservation groups and conservation districts. And afterward, I've just had people come up and be like, "I just have a hard time believing this." And I'm like, "It's real. Trust me, I have a whole job and an income that comes from this. I wouldn't exist if this wasn't real."

(20:06):

But I want other places to believe who have this sort of downtrodden attitude, well, this can't be done. And it's like, again, horse hockey. It can be done. We're doing it in Iowa of all places. Anybody can get these locally-led initiatives off the ground. So that's my goal is to get everybody else to think, "Well, heck, if Iowa can do it, we can do it."

Jamie Duininck (20:23):

Well, it's the age-old thing of places like Minnesota that want to lead the conservation thing, but stop every possible thing you say. Then you go nowhere. And good for Iowa. And at some point they're going to have to take a look and say, "What do we do?" Which was nothing.

Ruth McCabe (20:45):

Yeah, right. I will, that thought, I mentioned federal agencies that are helping. There are also some four-letter federal agencies in the conservation space that I think are not helping and have slowed things down in a way that it's like, "You said no because you had the power to say no."

Jamie Duininck (20:46):

Yeah. And they literally are four-letter agencies, you weren't just saying-

Ruth McCabe (21:05):

Yeah, no, they are literally four-letter agencies that I really do, I could grind that ax ad nauseum.

(21:09):

So there's a lot of changes happening federally, and so I hope that some of the changes that are happening will clear up some of those issues. I don't know that they will, but whatever. You got to do something.

(21:22):

So from my perspective, I want to just shove those who like to just say no because they can out of the way. And if there's other federal agencies who are saying, "Well, hey. Hey, We'll help you. We'll step up and help you out." I'm all about it, game on. As long as your goal is to get conservation on the ground, my goal is to get conservation on the ground, let's do it.

(21:40):

So that's the other kind of ulterior motive of mine is to prove that even if you have a four-letter federal agency that just wants to say no, that there are other federal agencies who are actually doing their jobs, that are willing to step in and help fill that void too. So hopeful, optimistic stories all the way around and yeah.

Jamie Duininck (22:01):

Good. Going a totally different direction here, kind of as we close up, but I'm curious on just from the standpoint of the general public in Iowa and what you hear, whether it's wetlands, whether it's a batch and build, a buffer strip in Oxbow that farmers have, what kind of interest is there from the general public from the standpoint of recreation, like the hunting recreation and stuff? Do they have a lot of people trying to contact them saying, "Hey, could I walk that for pheasants?"

Ruth McCabe (22:38):

Absolutely, they do.

Jamie Duininck (22:39):

"Can I deer hunt that?" Whatever that might be. And is that a good thing? A bad thing? What is that from a public perception and pressure standpoint?

Ruth McCabe (22:47):

Yeah, there's a lot to unpack with that question as well. Iowa is like 45th or 46th in the nation for access to public land. We were 49th in the nation. I think Rhode Island was the only state with less access to public land.

Jamie Duininck (22:59):

I'd have thought Texas is the worst but-

Ruth McCabe (23:00):

No. No, no, they're not at all. Yeah, Iowa's, it's bad.

Jamie Duininck (23:04):

Okay.

Ruth McCabe (23:04):

Bad and good. But at the end of the day, there's not a lot of access to public land for, say, hunting. So that is an issue and there are plenty of environmental-leaning people, especially usually associated with cities, who have this criticism of, "Well, we don't want our tax dollars going towards private lands conservation. It should go towards public lands conservation." And there's that whole debate which we won't get into.

(23:29):

And again, this is why earlier I said, "Look, I just focus on two things preventing soil loss, cleaning water, and that's it." Because you can really get lost in the weeds, pun intended, when you start diving into the social justice aspect of whatever, right?

(23:42):

So I respect that argument. I don't agree with it, but I respect it. Okay. We could dive into it, but I don't. Instead, what I encourage people to do is talk to the people who own the land that you want to hunt. Believe it or not, if you go and knock on someone's door and say, "Hey, how about 25 bucks a gun? We'd like to push this filter strip that you have, shoot some pheasants." They'll probably say yes. I can't tell you how many farmers I've offered to give them a case of beer or a bottle of whiskey, or I'll bring them one of the birds that I shoot.

(24:14):

And I hear yes a lot. My husband, same thing, we hear yes a lot. You'll hear no every now and then that whatever, but a lot of folks are asking landowners and farmers if they can push a filter strip or push a riparian area. The cool thing that I've seen is some landowners that I helped early on when I was at Heartland three or four years ago, put in some wetland projects, they've actually started offering hunting leases on those wetland acres.

Jamie Duininck (24:36):

That's really where I was going, wondering if they're making money off of them.

Ruth McCabe (24:40):

Yes. So again, those landowners have since told me like, "This is really cool. I get $5,000 a year for that hunting lease on that pond that we put in. And that's so great because it helps cover the taxes."

Jamie Duininck (24:50):

Pays the taxes.

Ruth McCabe (24:52):

The land taxes on those acres. So I'm excited to see that. I'm like, "This is fantastic." More landowners need to see that if you put this thing in, not only is it a cool space for your family to enjoy for futures to come, but also you can get some income from it, just like hunting. So I'm excited about that, for what it is.

(25:10):

And as somebody who loves to hunt, and with the minimal access that we have to public land, I am okay with offering, with talking to somebody and offering them a little bit of compensation to hunt their land. I'm okay with that, so I'm all about it, all about business ventures. So mercenary me, I'm like, "Hey, it's a good hustle, good side hustle. I'll give you some money. I'll bring you some whiskey. I'll give you a bird if I shoot one."

(25:34):

[Inaudible 00:25:34] ends up becoming friends with these people. There's a couple of landowners that I've hunted their land every year and we've become really good friends with the people that own that land now. So we bring them a pheasant because we want to bring them a pheasant, and then we chat about it and they share bear meat with us when they go bear hunting. And it's just super cool that you end up building those kinds of relationships. I'll stop gushing about that now.

Jamie Duininck (25:55):

Well, I'll give our Iowa listeners a pro-tip on that. If you have a respectful 12-year-old son, it works every time.

Ruth McCabe (26:05):

100%. 100%. Take the hat off, put him on a leg, yeah.

Jamie Duininck (26:07):

And not only that, I used to do that a lot and with my son, and it taught him how to go shake people's hands and look them in the eye-

Ruth McCabe (26:07):

Absolutely.

Jamie Duininck (26:15):

... and talk to them, so it was a win-win-win all the way around.

Ruth McCabe (26:18):

Yeah. Yeah.

Jamie Duininck (26:19):

Ruth, thanks a lot for being here today. It's fun again to visit on The Water Table. And I think, I know I counted three, maybe four times that you said that's the topic for another show. So-

Ruth McCabe (26:32):

So I have to come back.

Jamie Duininck (26:32):

... I don't think this will be the last.

Ruth McCabe (26:34):

No.

Jamie Duininck (26:35):

And we'll do it again. And there is, there's a lot of topics that flow into conservation and conservation in agriculture and just like we just talked about with public perception of the ability to use that land. And we could go to prior property rights, we can go lots of different directions and we probably should because it's good topics. And it's one of the reasons why we wanted to start The Water Table in the beginning was to be able to connect to our city cousins and tell them what we do and educate them on what we do so that they know it's really good stuff and try to have them get behind it.

Ruth McCabe (27:13):

Yeah. Okay, quick plug for your show. On the drive up here, I was catching up on some of the episodes that I've missed in the last few weeks. And you had an episode where Trey was interviewing a lady from Ontario, Mel something, her last name is something I can't pronounce, but it's like Mel, L-U-Y something or other. And she works for the Ontario Land Improvement, the Land Improvement LICO. Land Improvement Contract-

Jamie Duininck (27:13):

Yep. Yep.

Ruth McCabe (27:37):

Okay. And she said something at the end of her interview with you that I loved and made me cheer as I was driving because I was like, "Yes, yes, yes." And she said, "This is all very nuanced and it's so easy for city folk and environmentalists and farm advocates to just get on their side and they're not willing to stand in this awkward middle and have these kinds of conversations." Your podcast has done such a fantastic job of bringing people on who can acknowledge the good, the bad, the ugly, the uncomfortable in this space in a very positive, constructive way.

(28:07):

She was fantastic. And as listening to her, I was like, "Yes, it is nuanced. This whole subject of drainage management and everything, it's all so nuanced. But if we don't have these conversations, we don't make progress forward." So when I heard that, I thought cheers for Water Table bringing some people on who make that exact point because it is. So anyway, you guys are like, you're edgy without even knowing that you're being edgy.

Jamie Duininck (28:32):

No, thank you. Our goal is to educate and to

Ruth McCabe (28:32):

That's fantastic.

Jamie Duininck (28:36):

And to know that not everything we do is... There's two sides to every story, but there usually is some common ground if we can talk through some things.

Ruth McCabe (28:47):

The truth lies in the middle on almost all things.

Jamie Duininck (28:50):

Yep. Yep. Thanks for your time.

Ruth McCabe (28:51):

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Jamie Duininck

Host