Informative speakers and presentations, a fantastic Iowa grown lunch, wonderful entertainment, and incredible weather made the 2008 Annual Meeting & 10th Anniversary Celebration a great success! Thank you to all who attended, presented and worked so hard to put it together! We'll udpate this page with more about the  day, so please check back. If you have pictures, stories or thoughts on the event you'd like to share, we invite you to email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , and we'll add them here.

Annual Meeting Photos 

Registration, display boards, breakfast breads and morning farm chores awaited annual meeting guests in the Griffieon barn before the meeting.

Registration begins! (photo by Stephanie Weisenbach)

Neighboring Ankeny has annexed over 7,000 acres since 2003.  Suburban housing now dots the landscape on three sides of the Griffieon farm where world class farmland once laid.

View of Sprawl from the Griffieon Farm (photo by Stephanie Weisenbach)

Hostess LaVon (aka LaVanna) Griffieon felt her Wheel of Fortune had hit a Bonus Round when perfect weather greeted her guests for a day outside on the farm.

LaVon Griffieon Welcomes Attendees (photo by Stephanie Weisenbach}

Our keynote speaker, Secretary of Agriculture, Bill Northey explained how multi-faceted the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) is and the problems they tackle.

Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey at the Annual Meeting

The highpoint of the day was when Secretary Northey announced his plans for a Farmland Protection Program in Iowa and invited 1000 Friends input into the discussion.

Bill Northey (photo by Stephanie Weisenbach)

LaVon Griffieon exposes/reveals the fact that she and Secretary Northey grew up in the same town, had the same teachers and both benefited from a strong conservation curriculum in the school system....albeit one of them may have been a tad older than the other....

Bill Northey & LaVon Griffieon (photo by Jim Murdock)

President, Laura Belin, presided over the business meeting and served as emcee for the day.

Laura Belin, Board President (photo by Jim Murdock)

Connie Mutel, author of The Emerald Horizon: The History of Nature in Iowa, generously donated all proceeds from book sales at the annual meeting to 1000 Friends of Iowa.

Connie Mutel (photo by Jim Murdock)

Connie Mutel discussed Iowa's natural history before settlers reminding us of the land's amazing ability to cleanse and renew it's systems. She described how people changed it, explained the evidence of ecological collapse at present, and emphasized the necessity of working with nature to provide homes where native species and diversity can flourish making Iowa the champion in restoration.

Connie Mutel (photo by Stephanie Weisenbach)

Mark Jamison donated his time and the use of his bus to take attendees to an on site presentation and a Tour de Sprawl of the proposed NE Polk County Beltway.

Cade Ulrich steps off the Tour de Sprawl bus (photo by Stephanie Weisenbach)

Board member, Erv Klaas shared his knowledge with members in Griffieon's pasture concerning Iowa streams, riparian areas, water quality, erosion, grazing and solutions to heal our land and save our natural resources.

Erv Klaas presentation in pasture (photo by Jim Murdock)

The pasture provided a stark contrast between a healed stream bank that has been contoured, seeded and planted with trees six years ago and this eroded section that is still awaiting attention.

Erv Klaas presentation in pasture (photo by Jim Murdock)

From the pasture the group went on a Tour de Sprawl of development contiguous with the Griffieon farm and following the route of the proposed NE Polk County Beltway led by LaVon Griffieon and Stephanie Weisenbach.

Loading to begin Tour de Sprawl (photo by Stephanie Weisenbach)

The two hour Tour de Sprawl bus tour included a survey of the natural history of the area with virgin prairie, potholes, wetlands, and glacial formations.  The politics at local, city, county, state and federal levels that have allowed the land use changes were discussed.  Sprawl, flooding, unincorporated development, schools, small towns and local businesses were discussed.

Attendees are taken on a tour of development practices, both smart growth and sprawl promoting examples (photo by Jim Murdock)

Saving the People, Saving the Land

By Jay E. Howe, Free Press Field Editor

Reprinted with permission from Page 2A Adair County Free Press August 20, 2008

Last Saturday was the 10th anniversary of when 1000 Friends of Iowa was founded to 1) conserve and protect farmland and natural areas, 2) revitalize neighborhoods, towns and cities and 3) improve Iowa’s natural environment. It was celebrated at the Ankeny  grain-livestock farm of Craig and LaVon Griffieon. From their farmstead you can view south to sprawling urban development upon lands that are the richest in the world, with corn suitability ratings well over 90. The roof of the mega-church rises just down the gravel road, making one wonder if its parishioners have read Isaiah 5:8-10, where the prophet admonishes us to respect the land as sacred creation or eventually be impoverished.

There is a small yet growing “green” movement to reverse the eco-collapse of Iowa’s countryside that accelerated in the 70s with the advent of much larger farm implements and widespread chemical use. In 1800 Iowa was 80% natural prairie, 18% woodland, 2% water surface. It was naturally sustainable. Today two-thirds of the land is planted to corn and bean rotation and life-giving natural processes are under assault. Things are out of balance.

With reliance on farm subsidies (after abandonment supply-management and the ever-normal granary that characterized Henry Wallace’s 1935-1952 farm policy) we overproduced feed grains, got lower grain prices, and then tried in vain to make it up in volume. This resulted in “mining” our farms, soil erosion, water pollution, and loss of ecosystems as well as an exodus of millions of farm families from the land, both in the US and in other countries (Mexico, etc.). With bio-fuels now in demand, who knows what the impact of intense cropping will be?

Speakers at the anniversary event spoke of land preservation urgency and of opportunities for a “restoration ecology” that allows us to grow ample healthy foods while moving to practices that sustain rural landscapes into the future. One speaker was University of Iowa professor Cornelia Mutel who has written about the history of nature in Iowa “The Emerald Horizon”. Another was Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey (R) who displayed a thorough knowledge of contemporary farming and an excellent ability to comprehend and deal with complex farm policy issues and policy impacts.

Mutel explained how in 200 years Iowans undertook the most radical manmade transformation of a natural landscape in the history of the world. Now this generation must undertake the task of managing recovery of its threatened landscape. The cost of doing nothing ecological collapse. As a starter Mutel suggests converting 50% of the nation’s corn and soybean fields into perennial coverage. Adair County’s hills and slopes could accommodate this scheme as well as any other place.

And, with tighter feed grain supplies, increases in commodity prices would help stabilize higher net farm income for all sectors of agriculture, including producers of locally marketed fruits, vegetables, meat and poultry.

                                -Free Press Field Editor, J.E.H.