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Kathleen Masterson
Reporter, Iowa Public Radio

Kathleen Masterson has always loved the many intersections of art and science. In college she studied English and Environmental Studies and was torn as to which one she’d have to “choose” when finding a job. She taught high school English for a few years, and then swung back to science when she traveled to rural Argentina to work on a bird research project. She returned home to study science journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she wrote for the local newspaper, made a short film about 4,000-cow dairy, and created several short films in the Bolivian Amazon basin. After graduate school she went on to work as digital producer for NPR’s science desk.

Articles by this author:

  • Blending of cultures may be blueprint for growth

    Farmer of the Future, part 1: While some of the rural Midwest is hollowing out, regions like Sioux County, Iowa, are actually growing, thanks largely to immigrant populations moving in to take jobs that employers otherwise cannot fill. Melding cultures is never easy, but in communities like Sioux County, Latinos are slowly making the Midwest their home.

     

    Interactive map: Hispanic growth in the Midwest

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Dairy industry pushes for reform

    In the wake of a 2009 downturn which saw milk prices hit rock-bottom lows, many are calling the government price support system broken and are asking for a better safety net in the 2012 Farm Bill.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Could climate change warm your chardonnay?

    As California's climate experiences changes, its wine industry may also have to change. But many grape growers aren't too concerned just yet.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
    3 Comments
  • 'Ag-Gag' law blows animal activists' cover

    A new Iowa law makes it illegal for someone to misrepresent themselves to gain access to a farm in order to secretly record farm business. Farmers say they need the legal protection to block those trying to take down agriculture, but critics are asking what the industry may be hiding.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Climate change and regulations worry Calif. farmers

    Along with the uncertainty of climate change, many California farmers are grappling with regulations designed to lessen its effects.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Soybean association looks to open EU markets

    The American Soybean Association is pushing for U.S. trade representatives to negotiate better trading terms with Europe, looking for the European Union to ease the strict restrictions it imposes on genetically modified soybeans.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Farmers buy grain bins to play the commodities market

    Across the corn belt, more farmers are putting up their own grain bins. In the past year alone, farmers nationwide have added some 300 million bushels of on-farm storage. By storing their own grain, farmers can choose when and at what price they want to sell, and that can translate into thousands of dollars in profit. And this has grain buyers — like grain elevators and ethanol plants —working to keep their edge in the market.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
    1 Comments
  • Introducing FoodCorps

    FoodCorps is a nationwide service project that sends its members into schools and communities to teach nutrition, build gardens and bring more local, fresh produce into school lunches. FoodCorps co-founder Debra Eschmeyer recently spoke with Kathlen Masterson in Des Moines.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
    7 Comments
  • Cows munch on recycled Captain Crunch

    Throwing food scraps to hogs and other farm animals is an age-old practice. As food production has become more industrialized, food factories have found ways to continue to recycle massive amounts of would-be food waste.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
    18 Comments
  • Health group pushes farmers to reduce antibiotic use

    Though the FDA recently backed away from a proposal that would ban the low-level use of some antibiotics in livestock feed,  health advocacy groups are campaigning to eliminate the practice – and they're taking their message directly to farmers.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
    2 Comments

Blogs by this author:

  • Farmers lobby hard for crop insurance

    Government subsidized crop insurance is a vital safety net – that was the central messages from farmers and crop insurance agents testifying before a U.S. Senate committee agriculture hearing Thursday.

    Critics say the program is too costly, but commodity farmers want to keep the program and even add more risk protection options.

    The lengthy morning hearing was full of stories like this one:

    "(Last year) we went through the most devastating crop year in history," said Haskell County, Kan., Farm Bureau president Jarvis Garetson. "We had on our farm less than 5 inches rain in the last 18 months, that's by far less than what we received through the Dust Bowl in Haskell county.

    "Without federal crop insurance, we would be having farm sale this spring, instead of preparing to plant the next crop.”

    Many farmers testified to the importance of crop insurance in protecting their family’s way of life and for the key role it plays in securing a farm loans from banks.  

    Other than specialty crop growers, most want to keep crop insurance running the way it does. 

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Activists protest Iowa 'Ag Gag' bill

    About 30 animal rights activists assembled Thursday on the steps of the state capitol in Des Moines to protest a bill that would criminalize the actions of activists who go undercover at large farms.

    The protestors held up posters depicting mistreated farm animals. Dressed in black, the activists’ eyes were blindfolded with black cloth and their lips covered by a piece of tape to symbolize what they describe as the silencing effect of the bill.  

    Other states including Nebraska and Minnesota have proposed similar legislation, but Iowa’s bill has already passed the state House and Senate. Still, the bill has yet to be signed by Iowa Gov. Terry Brandstad.  

    Vandhana Bala, spokesman for animal rights group Mercy For Animals, said his organization hopes to stop the governor from signing the bill.

    “We're trying to get out the message that consumers have an absolute right to know how food is being produced and how animals on factory farms are being treated so they can make informed choices,” Bala said.

    The bill makes it a criminal act to lie on a job application or present false information to gain access to a farm. It is less expansive than last year's bill, which would have criminalized the act of taking photos or other recordings on a farm without the owners' direct permission. 

    Iowa Democratic state Senate majority leader Mike Gronstal says the bill doesn't doesn't violate the Constitutional right to free speech.

    “I'm confident the folks in our chamber worked with the attorney general to deal with the constitutional issues,” Gronstal said. “In the end, that'll be up to a court to decide.”

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Calif. farmers find crop flexibility key

    While winter in the Midwest's breadbasket often means snow, cold rains and blustering winds, over in California’s "salad bowl" region it's sunny, and this year it's particularly dry.

    I recently traveled to California's Central Valley to do some reporting on how climate change may affect agriculture there. Having traipsed about farms in the Midwest for nearly two years now, it was striking to see just how different agriculture is in sunny California. For one, seeing blossoms in February, alive with bees and soaking up the balmy, 70-degree weather, confused my four-seasons brain. 

    But the difference that was most immediately obvious was the vast diversity of crops grown in the state. California farmers grow over 200 different crops and several farmers I talked with grow at least eight varieties at any given time. Not only that, but farmers are much more accustomed to, and adept at, switching between crops relatively rapidly.

    That's been true for years, says Louise Jackson, a professor in plant and environmental sciences at University of California Davis.

    "(Crops) in California have moved around like crazy," Jackson said. "Around the turn of the century, the Los Angeles basin was an incredible production area for vegetables." Now, much of the vegetable production has moved north, to the Salinas Valley.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • 'Natural' food labels under scrutiny

    Healthy food labels are springing up everywhere. In fact, they’ve even been spotted in courtrooms.

    At your local Walmart you can find "Great for You" labels on products the store has deemed healthy. A few years ago, some food industry giants tried to launch the Smart Choices campaign, which received much critique for putting their seal of approval on cereals like Fruit Loops. 

    Monday on KCUR's Up To Date, Harvest reporter Jessica Naudzianas, food scientist Kanthe Shelke and I discussed how hard it is for consumers to sort through the maze of labels and complex ingredient lists. 

    One food label in particular has become the target of a spate of lawsuits across the country.  

    The label "Natural" or "100% Natural” is as vague as it is controversial.  We reported earlier on what it means for meat, but when it comes to other foods like granola, cooking oil or chips, the label doesn't have a defined meaning. Basically, other than a few regulations about artificial flavors, it's up to the food companies to decide what's natural.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • New map compares farm subsidies

    The data folks at the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released a new tool they hope will help policymakers and farm groups discussing the 2012 farm bill. It's a visualization map of the billions of dollars the USDA spends on the top seven farm programs across the country. 

    "We wanted to really give a visual display of how these programs are distributed geographically across the country and look at participation and the  benefits from these key federal programs ," said Erik O'Donoghue, an agriculture economist with the USDA's Economic Research Service and one of the map's creators.

    "We hope that it would inform discussion about federal farm programs, especially with the upcoming farm bill," O’Donoghue said.

    Right now, the ERS Farm Program Atlas only shows 2009 data for federal farm programs, but O'Donoghue says they're hoping to add in historical data and future years as well.

    That data has been available on their website for years, but for the non-farm policy wonks among us, those vast tables and reports are challenging to interpret and it's hard to get a sense of where the money is going across the country. This new atlas breaks down the data by county, so the concentration of benefits is immediately apparent, with stark visual contrast.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Farm moms seek Common Ground with consumers

    In the face of growing consumer focus on where food comes from and how it's raised, national corn and soybean growers organizations' are expanding their new ad campaign. Some say they’re trying to put “a softer face on agriculture.”

    That softer face:  farm women.

    The project is called "Common Ground," and relies on volunteer women farmers and farm wives to do public outreach.  It's funded by the National Corn Growers Association and the United Soybean Board.

    At events in grocery stores and local businesses and through social media, the women volunteers explain to people how they grow their crops and raise their animals. Many of their farm products end up in American food products as meat, soybean oil, high fructose corn syrup and other corn and soybean ingredients.

    "We're reaching out to our urban counterparts. We feel that for the most part moms are the ones that make the food decisions in families, so those are the ones we want to reach out and to connect with," said Sara Ross, a self-described farm wife, mom, and volunteer blogger with the Iowa chapter of Common Ground, one of the pilot sites. Common Ground recently expanded into Kansas and ultimately aims to reach all 35 corn and soybean states.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Reducing fertilizer waste with GPS

    Just a few generations ago, applying fertilizer to fields meant spreading manure -- either with a good old-fashioned shovel or a tractor. Sometimes, farmers just let livestock graze in fields and "spread" the manure themselves. 

    But with the development of chemical fertilizers and larger equipment (and the push for higher and higher yields), many farmers began to fertilize their fields using massive tractor spreader systems. Now soil fertilization is evolving again.

    Agronomists have developed software that uses GPS to apply just the right kind and amount of fertilizer on each section of a farmer's field.

    A survey a few years ago showed that about 20 percent of Midwestern farmers were using this budding technology, called variable rate application, said soil fertility scientist Antonio Mallarino of Iowa State University. In Iowa, even more farmers use it.

    "It's tough to say exactly how many, but I'd estimate that at least 40 percent of Iowa farmers are using variable rate technology, and it's increasing," Mallarino said.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Ag development deals in Africa raise concerns

    For the better half of the last decade, foreign investors have been flocking to get their hands on arable land in Africa.  Worries about food security and rising grain prices have driven a flurry of foreign investment deals in Tanzania, Mali, South Sudan, Ethiopia and Mozambique.

    Investors from the U.S., China, South Korea and other nations are leasing or negotiating leases for more than 138 million acres in Africa (about the size of Michigan), according to a 2011 World Bank report,  though some accounts put the number much higher.

    Many investors describe their project as bringing development, technology and food to impoverished areas, but critics describe the land leases and purchases as plantation-style land grabs.  They are concerned that the large development projects may undermine smaller, local efforts to increase food production because many foreign investors aim to grow and sell grain and biofuels to foreign markets, doing little for the local economy and health.  Local farmers also may be losing their land rights.

    “Agreements to lease or cede large areas of land in no circumstance should be allowed to trump the human rights obligations of the states concerned,” United Nations investigator Olivier De Schutter told Africa Renewal.

    But critics say it's already happening.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Startup wants to change the way we farm

    A new project by the Rural Enterprise Center aims to develop a new farming model that will create economically and environmentally sustainable farms.

    The think tank says growing economic inequities and a reliance on environmentally unsustainable farming practices are working against the current food production system.

    Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, the director of the Rural Enterprise Center, says the way we produce food relies on cheap labor and until farmers can get a fair income, rural America will continue to hollow out.

    "We need to rearrange the factors in the food and ag system so that communities thrive as they become food producers rather than being drained out of resources," Haslett-Marroquin said.  He also asserts that farms today use more energy than they produce, and the system won't be able to continue indefinitely.

    Those are some hefty claims, but Haslett-Marroquin says the project they're developing will back them up.

    By: Kathleen Masterson
  • Iowa, it is in your backyard: Scientists urge plan for climate change

    Climate change is  already affecting Iowa's climate and state and local governments should start doing something about it, prominent Iowa scientists urged Tuesday. Thirty-one scientists from colleges and universities across the state signed a petition that advocates for action on climate change.

    Warmer and wetter weather is already affecting agriculture in Iowa and the Midwest and Iowa farmers are about on par with the general public in that nearly two-thirds believe climate change is real.  Still, climate change is a political issue.

    "Just as evidence seems to be increasing that climate change is happening, there seems to be increasing skepticism among both the lay public and, certainly, among politicians about it," said David Courard-Hauri, a professor of environmental science and policy at Drake University.

    By: Kathleen Masterson