Salatin then warned that half of all American farmland will be transferred in the next 15 years, so the nation needs a new generation of land lovers:
“We call them ‘land masseuses,’ to massage our landscape instead of exploit it, to come to it as nurturers rather than conquistadors, and to view themselves as part of a healthy food system, to bring healthy food to Americans, to bring health back to Americans, and choice back to our food system. The man to do that is Zach Lahn!”
The stage was set for Lahn to share his vision for a healthier Iowa. Lahn’s full speech covered a broad range of issues and was published in full here at The MAHA Report. His campaign has centered on MAHA policies that support regenerative agriculture to reduce water pollution, rebuild soils, and provide nutritious, Iowa-grown food in school lunches.
Iowa has some of the highest cancer rates in the nation. Lahn has advocated for reducing nitrate and other contaminant levels in Iowans’ drinking water, much as Kennedy years ago fought to clean up the Hudson River.
Lahn acknowledged the two men’s shared passion, telling the Iowa rally crowd:
“One of the reasons I got into this race, one of the primary reasons, was because I believed in what Bobby Kennedy [Jr.] said. He said: we’re gonna make real progress on these issues when we decide that ‘we love our children more than we hate each other.’ This man has been an inspiration to our country. And I will tell you, the entire country owes his family a debt of gratitude.”
Kennedy joined Zach on stage. Known for his passionate impromptu speeches, he began by recounting his decades-long battle to stop pollution of the Hudson River, during which he learned of laws prohibiting unauthorized discharges into waterways. He explained the
ancient legal foundations of the idea of a ‘public trust’ in which the air, water, and wildlife “belong to all the people. Everybody has a right to use them.” Applying this ethic in the MAHA movement, he argued that “Every child in this state has the right to drink water without the fear that they’re gonna get cancer, to breathe air without getting asthma.”
Kennedy next tied this idea of public rights to America’s historical identity as a nation defined by wilderness and wild landscapes, citing famous American thinkers, writers, and painters who helped shape the nation’s self-image around a connection to grasslands, mountains, and prairies.
As humans, Kennedy said, “our connection to nature is the closest connection that we have to God… These landscapes connect us to everything that is important.” He then recounted pivotal wilderness episodes in the lives of great spiritual leaders (including Moses, Mohammed, and Buddha), noting that “Almost all of Christ’s parables come from the farm.”
Having developed his theme of the connection between farming, food, and human health, Kennedy expressed his conviction that “it is a sin to poison our children.”
He closed with this MAHA message:
“We have to think of a way to grow food without poisoning our kids, without giving ourselves cancer, without destroying the soils that enrich us and enrich our microbiome and connect our brain with all our organs and make us healthy, robust, and vibrant people. And we need somebody who is really smart, who understands these issues… And I can think of the most important ones, and it’s the person we’re here tonight to support.”
These words neatly tied together the night’s themes. The audience’s intense passion inspired the many speakers, who in turn rallied the crowd to cheers, clapping, and several standing ovations.
Lahn was visibly energized, pausing at one point to observe, “I can feel the movement. Can you feel the movement? I can feel it … One of my goals for the state of Iowa is to make Iowa the real food capital of the country.”
In just four days, Iowans will vote for their future – for all of ours.