Dr. H-N's crazy idea!

My name is Glen Halva-Neubauer, and I am Dana Professor of Political Science and Director of the Mock Trial and Public Service Internship Programs at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina.  This May, five of my students and I are spending three weeks on the Iowa farm where members of my family have lived for nearly a century.  Our time in Iowa is focused on learning about agricultural policy by working on farms, visiting with farmers, attending lectures, and taking tours of both production and sustainable agriculture farms.

The course is an utter experiment, an adventure.  I bring no special expertise in farm policy, though I have immersed myself in the subject area for the last year.  As a result, I have had to develop a curriculum that locates experts and cajoles them into assisting me with my latest crazy idea.  I have depended heavily on friends, family, and neighbors--particularly Dennis Friest, our family's neighbor for over 60 years.  My high school classmate, the Honorable Annette Sweeney, also has been a terrific help.  I have never run a bed and breakfast, and in many ways, having five students living in a house that you own with your brother and sister seems similar to operating a B&B.  And speaking of my siblings--they, too, are involved in this educational enterprise as my sister and brother-in-law have come from Florida to serve as the den parents to the students, and my brother, the real farmer of the three, is sharing his nearly five decades of experience as a farmer with the students.  My brother and sister-in-law are providing me with a room.  And if this isn't enough of an adventure--note that this May X course is fraught with irony.  I spent the better part of my life working to get off the farm, out of Iowa.  How, at 54, did I land back in the Hawkeye State facilitating a course centered on agriculture policy.  Stay tuned.  I've not lost my mind, I think.

What is not ironic or experimental is the fact that most Americans know little about the origin of their food or about the way in which food is produced in the United States.  For those who do follow this policy area, they will find a pitched battle is being waged over food systems in the United States between proponents of commodity agriculture and their opponents in the sustainable agriculture community.  Most courses focus on one perspective or the other--we will look at both.  The students will have a level of access to experts that is unparalleled, and they will be able to make up their own minds about food policy based on their experiences.  To study agriculture and agriculture policy, however, is to note that this policy area is intimately connected to a host of other hot button topics from wellness, vegetarianism, economic development, environmental policy, and animal rights--to name but a few!

I am joined on this adventure by five extraordinary Furman students.  Here are their biographies:

Emily Barksdale ’12, St. Marys, West Virginia, recently earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Asian Studies with an interdisciplinary minor in Latin American Studies.  Emily is a committed vegetarian, who has not eaten meat in five years, and believes that the diet is more healthful and also is consistent with her perspective on the environment and social justice.   She has traveled extensively both in the United States as well as to Europe and Asia.  A leader on the Furman campus, she served on the Orientation Staff and as a counselor to Bridges to a Brighter Future, a program that works with students from low-income families to prepare them for college.  She looks forward to a lively debate and to leaving the May Experience with a better understanding of all sides of agriculture policy.  Later this summer, she enters the Teach for America program, where she will be instructing students in an underserved area of Dallas, Texas.  And, yes, Emily is taking this course after she has earned her degree.  That act alone speaks volumes about her status as an eager beaver, go getter.

Sam Burgess ’14, Tampa, Florida, is a transplant to the Sunshine State from New England (Brunswick, Maine).  At Furman, he is a political science and music major.  A trumpeter, Sam is involved in numerous music ensembles on campus, and he has marched for two seasons with the Boston Crusaders, a drum and bugle corps.  He has traveled extensively throughout the United States and to Mexico, the Caribbean, Spain, and Morocco. Sam took an environmental science course in high school that exposed him to the critiques of contemporary agriculture as espoused in Food, Inc. and King Corn.  He is hoping that Farm will present opportunities to learn other perspectives regarding agriculture.  During fall semester, he will participate in Furman’s Study Away program to the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium; while in Europe, Sam will focus his internship on Europe’s agriculture, and contrast that perspective with what he has learned about US agriculture law and regulations.

Katie Jo Jones ’14, Burlington, North Carolina, is the daughter of cattle brokers.  She grew up on a 75-acre farm taking care of chickens, horses, and cows.  Her mother owns grain farms in Ohio and a cattle farm in Southwest Virginia.  An accounting and political science major, Katie Jo is interested in pursuing a career in law so that she can represent farmers.  She argues that few people are educated on commodity farming, and she would like to see the regulations on farming lessened.  She has showed horses for most of her life, and she has trained to compete on a national and world level in recent years.  During her high school years at an all-girls boarding school, Katie Jo participated in a program that took her to South Africa where she worked on a “Soil for Life” project that reclaimed unused plots of land for community gardens.  A dedicated athlete, she was the captain of her high school volleyball team.

Morgan Nance ’15, Elgin, South Carolina, grew up helping her father cut and bale hay and feeding horses, chickens, and goats.  She also has assisted with building fences and constructing buildings to store hay.  Morgan worries that big companies are driving small and family farms out of existence, and she thinks that an agricultural monopoly is not desirable.  She wants to learn more about these issues and also the impact of government on the contemporary US food system.  Morgan is studying neuroscience and theatre arts at Furman, and she has been to Europe on three different occasions.  Like others in the course, she wishes to make an independent judgment about the contemporary food system and compare it to the one portrayed in Food, Inc.

Philip Shelton,’13, Richland, Washington, is a junior history major.  He comes from a family that holds a diversity of religious views.  Like his Farm contemporaries, Philip has traveled extensively to Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean.  Last May, he studied Sustainability Policy in China, and during the fall semester he participated in “East of the Rhine,” which led him to Poland, Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic.  Philip works at the Furman farm and he is a member of the University’s Environmental Action Group.  He is interested in learning more about agribusiness, as he is steeped in the worldview of sustainable agriculture.  He is especially interested in understanding more about the views that farmers hold regarding governmental subsidies.  Farm is an opportunity for him to wed his interests in agriculture to his coursework in political science. 

The students and I have been traveling around Iowa for the past four days in my late father's 1993 Roadmaster.  Yes, six people in a large car has made for a few interesting comments, and we expect more.