Just days after Mike Naig announced that he will seek another term as Iowa Sec of Agriculture, he finally realizes that thousands of Iowa farmers and hundreds of thousands of Iowans have lost their health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Where was he during the past six months when we knew the One Big Beautiful Bill was the reason for the ACA subsidy cuts? Why didn’t he speak up then? Why didn’t Congress respond to calls to restore the subsidies? Their response? A government shutdown — the longest in history. Even then, Republicans did nothing to restore the ACA grants — but Mike Naig wants them restored for farmers. Too little…too late.

Why do you suppose he wrote a complete column complaining about the loss of health insurance coverage for farmers—but we did not hear anything about his record or his plans for the future? Because his plans for agriculture have been a failure! The farm economy is in the tank. So, what do the Republicans do? Tariffs–maybe that will work–NOT! The Farm Bureau and the industrial Ag corporations have monopolized the crop-seed business, the meat processing business and the fertilizer business. They do not work for farmers; they lobby the legislature to keep their monopolies and against any regulations. Farms get bigger; farmers go broke or sell to a large corporate farmer or an out of state investor. The Nutrient Reduction Strategy has been in place for 13 years and our water is more polluted than ever. The factory farm, intensive confined animal feeding operations-CAFO system has bathed our land with manure and the nitrates end up in our water and our topsoil ends up in the Gulf of Mexico. If Mike Naig is worried about the health of farmers, why is he silent about Bayer’s pesticide immunity bill which denies farmers the right to sue pesticide companies when they have been harmed by their chemical products?!

We need a new Secretary of Agriculture. If farmers want change, they have to vote out those that work for corporations; and look to those who will put farmers and all Iowans first. To protect our land, our water and our air, we need a new Secretary of Agriculture. Clean water and air pollution and the cancer epidemic in Iowa will be on the ballot in 2026. Vote for change.