At this year’s 34th National No-Tillage Conference in St. Louis, I heard the real story behind a federal controversy I’ve wondered about for 10 years. This revelation came during a classroom session presented by Jonathan Lundgren.

Now the operator of Blue Dasher Farms in Estelline, S.D., Lundgren gave up a career path as a USDA scientist due to unfortunate political manipulation by folks in Washington. Now free of government interference, he’s doing independent on-farm regenerative ag research and collecting and analyzing data from 1,000 farmers practicing regenerative ag across the country.

Science Vs. Private Industry

Lundgren’s story boils down to an ethical battle he said that was a battle of real science vs. what private corporations “prefer” as scientific data. Sadly, he says, it’s led to manipulation by agencies, universities, farm groups, industry and even members of Congress. 

Lundgren spent 11 years as a USDA Agricultural Research Service scientist, starting in eastern South Dakota as a soybean aphid entomologist. Midway into his career, he found his duty as a scientist under attack due to numerous cases of political manipulation. 

The problems started in 2012 when he published a research paper concluding that a popular line of insecticides didn’t result in improved soybean yields. When corporations don’t like unfavorable product data, Lundgren says, they question the study’s experimental design, claim it to be “junk science” and/or throw up other roadblocks. 

It Happened to Lundgren

“I was doing everything I was supposed to, being part of several government advisory boards such as the EPA and the European Safety Authority,” he says. “I was named one of the top scientists in the country and given an award by President Obama.”

Things broke bad when Lundgren posed unpopular questions about RNAi-based pesticides, neonicotinoids, herbicides and crop-pollinating honeybees. 

Due to his involvement with regenerative farmers who bought fewer inputs, USDA accused him of promoting ideas that were “flying in the face” of accepted farming practices. Once his data supported regenerative ag, USDA and certain members of Congress indicated that they no longer wanted him looking at what many of them dubbed an “unorthodox way to farm.”

USDA Scientific Censorship

By this time, USDA officials no longer permitted Lundgren to speak out on a message that didn’t conform to their politically motivated playbook — even when his data-based research was peer-reviewed.

At one point Lundgren and an economist published a study on the history of corn production and its rise to dominance. USDA insisted Lundgren remove his name from the study and stopped him from doing similar risk assessments.

“I wasn’t willing to suppress science,” he says. “I quit and made a big fuss about what had happened to me. It led to front page coverage in the Washington Post in 2016.”

Soon after, USDA asked its scientists whether they’d experienced similar politically based scientific suppression. Lundgren says USDA was proud when 90% of the researchers reported no suppression or data manipulation. 

“But with 2,000 Agricultural Research Service scientists, that meant 200 scientists had experienced the same crap I went through. And USDA didn’t do anything about it,” Lundgren says. 

“I’m pretty sure I would’ve lost my job if I hadn’t quit. My decision to ‘out’ pesticides and tell the truth to farmers wasn’t a good career move.” 

While leaving USDA was the right choice, he says, it hurt his family and others important in his life.

“My corpse was on the ground, and I wasn’t sure where things were headed,” he says. “That’s when we bought the South Dakota farm to try and change things and hired a team of scientists to look at regenerative issues.”

Real Science vs. Politics

Besides data manipulation by USDA, Congressmen often fight the release of research that is unfavorable to pesticide companies. That pressure stems from companies that contribute “big bucks” to political campaigns.

Unfortunately, situations similar to Lundgren’s still occur today. But it also seems USDA has changed and now entertains these practices, even recently funding a $700 million investment in regenerative ag. 

By the way, an industry coalition leader at this year’s National No-Tillage Conference praised us for putting Lundgren on the program but added his board would’ve called for his head had he appeared on their program. 

That’s what our conference learning model is about — science, ingredients, recipes and zero censorship of concepts no-tillers are making work – regardless of what Washington, D.C. has to say about it.