June 2026
- Kevin Eicher
- 23 hours ago
- 3 min read
I think about the future a lot.
On good days, I can see a better world, even when the present seems to be going badly.
Invariably, I find the future I want is tied firmly to the past, especially when it comes to healthy soil and water and our relationship with nature.
The Iowa we have today was consciously chosen, and those choices go back ten or twelve thousand years, perhaps to the beginning of agriculture.
As humanity settled into specific places to cultivate food, we developed a territorial view of the earth: THIS land is ours; THAT land is theirs. Tribes became cultures, and cultures became divisions.
We became owners of the land rather than stewards or keepers. We divided the land and what grows on it and came to see the land as a tool of production, separate from ourselves.
Time moved from presence and became a unit of the measure of production. Nature became a collection of objects for study rather than a sacred community of beings. Humans placed themselves at the center of creation, and knowledge became detached from stewardship.
That brief description alone helps explain how Iowa became the largest hog producer in the nation while operating under some of the weakest laws governing that production.
Our culture has largely lost its deep psychological connection to the earth, time, and each other. We have become competitors for scarce resources, starting with the land itself, where your gain is often seen as my loss.
The land is game. It tries to live. Even when soaked in chemicals and left bare for half the year, it will grow something—not what we want, but something—to cover the ground and feed the biology.
I believe we are nearing the end of this road. The next thirty years will see the end of one model and the beginning of another. What that looks like is up to us.
So let’s ask a question:
What does it mean to be a water defender?
Do we continue to litigate against polluters?
Do we elect leaders who create earth- and people-friendly policies?
Do we rise up in protest on behalf of our watershed? Maybe.
But I want to go back ten thousand years to the beginning of the problem, with the understanding that agriculture itself was never the problem.
The problem has always been us and our relationship to the land and water.
We can litigate, change policies, and protest, but until we see ourselves as partners with the land; until we see something of ourselves in each other; until we move
beyond competition and become part of something larger that is growing and improving, we will continue to create systems of extraction rather than regeneration.
But I have hope.
I catch glimpses of the necessary relationships developing.
In his book High Tech/High Touch, John Naisbitt argued that the more technology permeates our lives, the more we hunger for authentic human experiences; that advancing technology creates its own counter-movement.
Our relationships begin online but culminate face-to-face and they are worldwide.
Our food comes from around the world, yet we seek out authentic foods from local markets.
Artificial intelligence advances while we ask what it means to be human.
Technology has brought us chemicals that kill, yet there is a growing desire to promote life in the soil and in nature.
Our goal, then, as defenders of our watershed, is to reconnect knowledge to responsibility.
Reconnect time to presence.
Reconnect cultivation to preservation.
Reconnect humanity to its role as guardian of the land, the water, and each other.
As we move forward, it will be from this state of mind that we create the policies, systems, and education needed to build a future where humanity once again acts as steward, guardian, and partner with the earth—a future worth living for everyone and everything.
Kevin,
Questions and comments are always encouraged
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