The basement cafeteria of the Longworth House Office Building in Washington, D.C. is a bustling place to be.  Officials come and go, and their constituents do the same.  Tables are at a premium, lines are long, yet somehow everyone gets enough to go on with.  The most dedicated are able to carve out some little place for themselves, at least for a brief while, until someone else carves one of their own.  It’s a microcosm, I guess.

It was day three, and by now I was starting to get to know the group of Iowans I was in DC with.  All of us were involved in agriculture, and we had all come to give input on a particular segment of agricultural policy.  Some were making their third such trip.  Some, like me, were making our first.

Each segment was represented by a committee.  The committees had met on our first day.  I had spent my meeting trying to learn more.  I did.  I learned about Chevron and Auer deference in legal proceedings, the Endangered Species Act, air quality standards, and how it all impacted members of my committee who stretched from New Mexico to Montana and from Pennsylvania to Arizona.

Day two had been devoted to educational breakout sessions on various points of agricultural interest,  Day three, the day which had the delegation from Iowa entering the cafeteria, had us visiting our national legislators and their staff to speak about existing ag policy.

Here in the cafeteria one of our group was able to summit and place a flag on the only available table, a table for four.  There were 15 of us, but having a toe hold gave us a base to mount subsequent campaigns from.  My detachment raided a nearby table when it lost all of its occupants save one.

“Would it be all right if we joined you?” we asked the young woman.

“Absolutely,” she said.  So a farm couple, a veterinarian, a hog producer, and myself did.

“Do you work here, or are you in town for a visit?” I asked.

“Well I used to work here, but now I live in Colorado.  I’m here advocating for women’s healthcare on behalf of Planned Parenthood.  Where are you guys from?”

“Iowa.”

“What brings all of you here?”

“Farm policy.”

We went on continuing to share lunch together.  It was a fine thing.  Alongside Chevron and Auer deference and the rest, I now stored tidbits about living in Denver, working in D.C., and the answers she provided to the inquiries we made about Colorado’s marijuana laws.  If such a conversation can happen in DC, I suspect it can happen in other places.

At that table and in the subsequent visits with our Representatives and Senators, I frequently had time to reflect on the group I had stumbled into being a part of, and I began to realize my appreciation for them.  No one spoke about abstract, philosophical arguments on agricultural policy.  Instead they spoke about their real-life, real-time view of agriculture, revealing some of the things they were passionate about and a little of the hope we all have in being able to make a difference.

Those who didn’t have to catch a flight that night were finally able to gather for an informal dinner.  They spoke of their families back home.  By now we had learned something about each other’s sense of humor, and laughter was plentiful and came freely without costing anyone a dime.  Back at the hotel, headed to my room, I smiled the same way an eight year old boy would.

“It was a good day.”

“It was with good people.”

I don’t know what will come of all our discussions on free trade, the new Farm Bill, regulatory and tax reform, and renewable fuels.  I don’t know what impression of Iowa the Coloradoan had left lunch with.  What I do know is that occasionally we all get the opportunity to try to make a difference on the issues that mater to us.  Perhaps the way to make the biggest difference is in how we live our lives.  I’ve been fortunate in agriculture to continue to get to know those who live their lives in ways which make a difference to me.

Originally the school had a herd of 100 cows and 100 hogs to go with them.  The kids did the work, most of them were orphaned after a yellow fever epidemic.  That was what the place used to look like.

Today it boasts a herd of dwarf Nigerian goats.  Ten perhaps.  They milk them to make soap.  They sell the soap at farmer’s markets.  The garden was unkempt.

“If I have a kid that likes to draw, I tell them that’s okay.  You come out here and draw while we work.”  I bet they would draw it even better, if they had to do it, but even to make soap the school looked outside to source volunteers.

Where they were today was complicated.  Long ago they had to quit being self sufficient.  Government regulation forbid eating much of their own food.  Regulation also posed challenges with the school’s religious foundation.  By now the conversation had turned to a whole myriad of buzz words:  non-profit partners, socially-conscious, aesthetic value, increased awareness, pollinator seeds.

I make no claim I understand the complications they face.

In the background, through the nearby trees, I could catch a glimpse of the boys at the school playing ball.  They were dressed in the school’s olive t-shirts with khaki shorts, white and black, and still playing the way the boys that preceded had:  for keeps.  I suspect they used to farm that way too.

The kids still understood what it was about.  Even if farming had now become little more than a curiosity.  Even if the use of the term “farming” was questionable.

“We also have chickens here.  Our goal is that soon we will no longer have to source any chicken feed at all, generating it instead from our leftovers.  We are teaching them about the larger cycle, that nothing gets wasted, and that we shouldn’t consume needlessly.”

I suppose it’s a fine cycle.  Agriculture teaches us an even larger one, though.  To survive we have to find a way to make it work.  If we try hard enough, and the rain comes just right, sometimes we can make it just a little bit longer before that cycle gets the better of us.

Still, they were doing good for those boys.  Waiting in the hallway for the boy’s room just before we boarded the bus, the bell rang, classes began changing, and I was in the midst of them.  Today they are at-risk kids, encompassing anything from ADHD to having been kicked out of schools in the past.

Many knew more about trying to survive than most their age.  Many probably knew it better than me.  It was a shame their glimpse of agriculture didn’t give them a better chance to put those skills to use.  It would have made some of them fine farmers.

“House of Mercy” was the translation for the place.  I had it for the teachers.  For other people’s children, I had what the teacher’s had:  faith.  They had it in them from the beginning.  There was no sense in doing something different now.