Catch Up With Francis Before The Election

Countdown to Victory: 1 Day You have a few more chances to catch up with Francis Thicke, your candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, before the election Tuesday. He will cast his ballot early today at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Fairfield, then set out on a two-day campaign tour with stops in Ames, Des [...]

We Need You: This Is Our Moment

Countdown to Victory: 2 Days Iowa Secretary of Agriculture candidate Francis Thicke’s broad-based appeal make him the statewide candidate to watch Tuesday. His appeal is urban and rural, male and female. He polls well among Democrats, independents and some Republicans. “Mommy Bloggers” like his forward-looking policies that will create new markets for family farmers and [...]

Ag Secretary Can Drive Rural Revitalization

Countdown to Victory: 6 Days “No one wants to come here,” lamented a supporter of the Francis Thicke Secretary of Agriculture campaign who was happily surprised when our candidate did, indeed, travel to Shenandoah in the southwest corner of the state. Thicke was there to visit BioProcess Algae LLC, a Green Plains Renewable Energy venture [...]

You Heard It From Northey: Vote For Francis Thicke

If you tuned into Iowa Public Radio’s “The Exchange” earlier today, you heard incumbent Ag Secretary Bill Northey say that if you want to return local control over CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operations) to county governments, you should “engage in the political process to set up those rules.”

In other words, you should vote for Francis Thicke for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture.

Urban Votes Count In Ag Secretary Race

Countdown to Victory: 10 days Fewer than 2 percent of Iowans live on farms. But all of us, Iowa Secretary of Agriclture candidate Francis Thicke points out, eat food, drink water and want lakes, rivers and streams to be clean when we play in them. We all breathe air. Urban votes win elections. Still, we [...]

Pushing Big Ag Away From Your Dinner Table

Countdown to Victory: 10 Days Image by Will Merydith via Flickr With his plan for more sustainable agriculture and more local food production, Francis Thicke is giving voice to a quiet revolution taking place across the country among people who think it’s time to push Big Ag away from the dinner table. It’s been going [...]

Leadership You Can Count On

Countdown to Victory: 11 Days One of the qualities those of us working to elect Francis Thicke Iowa Secretary of Agriculture respect most about our candidate is his temperament for leadership. It not only serves the campaign well, but offers Iowans a snapshot of the kind of advocate he will be for our shared values [...]

Listen To The Secretary of Agriculture Radio Debate

Learn more about the key differences between the candidates. Listen to the debate between Francis Thicke and Bill Northey, recorded on October 7th. Moderated by Kerry Cathcart, the debate was originally webcast on KMGO. Listen to the entire debate: [audio:http://c2494932.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/thicke-northey-debate-2.mp3] Listen to each candidate articulate their vision for agriculture: [audio:http://c2494932.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/debate-2-vision.mp3] Francis Thicke has accepted four [...]

Food Policy

Chapter 34 – Food Policy

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has formally recognized the economic and many other benefits of local food production in a new program called “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food,” which is encouraging the expansion of local food production across the country.

Connecting Farmers and Consumers

Chapter 33 – Connecting Farmers and Consumers

The opportunities for consumers to buy food directly from farmers have been increasing. In Iowa, there are now 223 farmers markets, and farmers market sales have increased 92 percent over the past five years. Farmers markets give consumers the opportunity to meet the farmer who produces the food they eat and to ask questions about how their food is produced.