From the field:

LaVon Griffieon farms on the
doorstep of development

An Iowa State University survey last November confirmed something that LaVon Griffieon had known for a long time: development is gobbling up Iowa farmland, at a rate of 26,000 acres every year.

Griffieon and her husband, Craig, live with urban sprawl. Debris from new home construction litter their corn and soybean fields. Increased traffic makes it dangerous to move farm equipment. Neighbors sell their land to developers, not other farmers. Housing subdivisions threaten their five-generation farm that used to be three miles north of the Ankeny city limits. The city limits are now a half-mile away.

"I could see signs of urban sprawl years ago, so I thought I'd try to educate our schoolchildren about agriculture," said the 4-H leader and mother of four. "I 'adopted' 400 fourth graders in Ankeny, and began sending their teachers a monthly letter about our life on the farm."

So began LaVon Griffieon's work as an Ag in the Classroom volunteer 11 years ago. Her first students are now sophomores in college. More than 12,000 children have toured the Griffieon farm, a cow-calf and feeder beef operation on 1,120 acres (more than half family-owned) where they grow corn, soybeans, alfalfa, oats and seed corn.

In 1998, Griffieon worked with the Conservation Districts of Iowa on a Leopold Center grant to bring the same message to adults in urban areas. The Nonfarmers Guide to Agriculture (Polk County) included 11 presentations and 12 farm tours for 850 people. Yet the sprawl continues.

"We might lose the battle in saving our family farm, but I plan on winning the war and getting land use legislation passed so other agricultural land and natural areas are no longer threatened," Griffieon says.

As an assistant commissioner for the Polk County Soil and Water Conservation District, LaVon works for the protection, maintenance and improvement of Polk County's nonrenewable resources. She is a member of the executive board of the Wallace House Foundation, and is secretary and founding board member of 1000 Friends of Iowa. She has had articles published in many magazines and newspapers, and has authored a weekly column about farm life and agriculture in her local newspaper.

"We have something very special here in Iowa-our climate and our soils," Griffieon says. "We are lucky enough to live in an environment conducive to food production in a world where, for many millions, such conditions only exist in prayers."