Ag Secretary Naig trims Christmas tree during two-stop visit to Nashua

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

and Bob Fenske, Of the Reporter

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig came through the area this week with an itinerary that included two stops in Nashua.

On Tuesday, June 17, Naig visited with Gary and Karen Beyer of Pine Ridge Tree Farm.

Gary Beyer, a now-retired state forester, has operated the tree farm since 1984, growing and selling Christmas trees and wreaths on about six acres of land.

While the Beyers sell several hundred trees and wreaths every year during the weekends they are open after Thanksgiving, June is actually the busy season at the farm.

“People don’t realize that most of the work on Christmas trees happens in the summer,” said Gary Beyer.

In order to manipulate the pines and furs to grow into their classic Christmas shape, the trees must be trimmed at just the right time of the summer growing season to narrow the spacing of the branches. This must be done every year for seven to 12 years before the tree is ready to go, Beyer said.

Naig scheduled his visit to Beyer’s farm not just to discuss agriculture issues with the veteran forester, but also for the opportunity to try trimming a tree or two.

“I’ve got 400 of them, so have at it,” said Beyer.

After a quick tutorial, Naig took his swipes around a couple of trees, neatly cutting them into a traditional Christmas shape.

“It was fun to try my hand at it and I don’t think I ruined a tree,” said Naig.

After the tour, Beyer and Naig discussed Beyer’s perspective on agriculture issues.

A career forester, Beyer emphasized the importance of promoting and protecting Iowa’s wooded areas.

“That’s the greatest buffer system we have, that timber, to fix some of the problems we have,” said Beyer.

Iowa has a timber industry that is often overshadowed by other agriculture fields, he said, and Naig agreed that more attention could be paid to timber for the economy and conservation.

“We need to think more about how we bring timber into conservation planning,” said Naig. “I’m hearing loud and clear from folks that timber has a role to play.”

Naig returned to Nashua on Wednesday with an appearance at the annual Spring Field Day at the Iowa State University Northeast Iowa Research and Demonstration Farm.

Billed as a chance for him to talk about the state’s acceleration of conservation and water quality efforts, Naig also covered other topics, including tariffs and immigration reform that he said are key to Iowa’s ag industry.

He spent almost 30 minutes talking about the importance of conservation efforts that Iowa farmers have undertaken, especially over the last 12 years.

He said it’s critical to farmers and the state that those efforts continue, because crops and livestock sales average $44 billion a year. Add economic multipliers to that figure and it jumps to $160 billion added to the Iowa economy annually, he said.

“Our soil, our water are at the core of our agriculture and our agriculture is at the core of our state’s economy,” Naig said. “We’re really encouraged by, excited by, what’s happening with implementing Iowa’s nutrient-reduction strategy.”

He said the foundation has been laid, and now the discussion has to turn to how to accelerate the process, do more and reach more people.

For every $1 the state puts into conservation, producers are investing $1.15, he said, proving that both the state and its farmers are committed to conservation.

“There’s never been more awareness about the need to do more, how do we do more, what’s available to us. There’s never been more actual work getting done,” he said.

Naig addressed many other issues during the question-and-answer period that followed his talk, including tariffs implemented by the Trump administration.

He said people tell him they are worried the tariffs will hurt Iowa agriculture, but he also sees what the president is trying to accomplish and he believes in it.

He quickly added, though, that tariffs can’t be a “strategy in and of themselves” but must be a tactic to secure better trade agreements.

“Tariffs as a tactic to achieve another outcome, I think, has proven through time to be effective,” Naig said, but he added that results need to be seen soon.

“We don’t have a lot of runway here. The profitability in ag is under such pressure, margins are so compressed … we need quick action, we need short-term gains.”

Naig expressed hope for opening new markets for Iowa agriculture.

“India can be a real game-changer,” he said, and Vietnam recently signed an agreement to purchase $2 billion of U.S. ag products, $800 million of which will come from Iowa.

Naig also said progress needs to be made on immigration reform, and if part of the reform could be focused on ag worker visas that part could make it through Congress.

“But then it always gets pulled into these other pieces and it can never seem to get enough of a majority to get it through,” he said.

The secretary said that he supports President Trump’s prioritizing border security, but he said that doesn’t mean he’s against legal immigration.

“We need Congress to act,” he said. “Do it in a way that’s legal and do it in a way that it’s above board and visible, but it has to function at a capacity that frankly it hasn’t in some time,”

He pointed out that agriculture in many ways has challenges that other industries don’t.

Planting and harvest need to take place at specific times. Corn needs to be detasseled when it’s ready. Cows need to be milked every day, he said. If those are disrupted it can start to affect the food supply chain and food prices starts to increase.

“That’s why ag needs to be prioritized in this discussion,” he said.