Zach Lahn’s Plan to Help Farmers While Cleaning Up Iowa’s Water

Zach Lahn was told he couldn’t win in politics by talking about Iowa’s water quality and the cancer crisis. Now, as the Republican nominee for governor, he is looking to restore the culture in Iowa by running for office on precisely those issues.

Lahn sat down with the Daily Signal for an interview on Tuesday at MAHA Summit 2026, which was held at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C. The regenerative farmer is aiming to solve the water and cancer crisis, protect family farms, improve public education, and build a state where Iowans want to stay for generations.

“Many people said, in the Republican primary, you can’t win by talking about water quality and cancer rates, and I said we’re going to do it anyways because it’s the right thing to do,” Lahn told the Daily Signal.

Lahn said he had no intention of running for the seat, but after seeing the “deeper systemic issues” that neither party had addressed, he wanted to get to the root of the problems rather than just treating the symptoms.

“We’re losing the culture in the state and in the country,” Lahn said, adding that he’s targeting four major issues in his campaign.

“We’re losing [kids] faster than 46 other states, we’ve lost 10,000 family farms in the past 20 years, we’ve gone from No. 1 to No. 27 in public education, and we have the fastest rate of new cancer in the history of the world. Those are all deeply systemic cultural issues that we have to address,” he continued.

Lahn’s great-great-grandfather built the family farm in 1900. After it was sold in 2005, Lahn was able to buy it back for the family in 2014. Now it operates as a regenerative organic farm.

“I’ve been trying to figure out how do we farm better with nature and grow things that will help us have a greater margin and allow farmers to keep more of their money,” Lahn said.

Large companies have been consolidating the industry for decades. Lahn says Big Ag “treats our farmers as price takers.”

“They have no choice in what they sell their product for, they’re held captive in this system, and their costs keep going up every year. Even as grain prices stay flat or go down, their cost of growing keeps going up for seed, fertilizer, and pesticides,” he said.

Advancing a New Approach to Agriculture

Regenerative farming is an approach to agriculture that rebuilds soil health, increases plant diversity, and restores ecosystems by minimizing soil disturbance and integrating livestock. It goes beyond organic farming by actively improving land quality over time.

“Regenerative farming is a way away from all of that [commercial farming],” Lahn explained. “It’s learning how to farm with nature, not against nature. So, the more you farm with nature, the less you have to use on the input side.”

Workers on the Lahn family farm grow organic corn, soybeans, oats, and alfalfa. They also just started growing einkorn because Lahn’s wife likes to make sourdough bread.

Lahn said they also use buffer strips, permanent narrow perennial plants used to reduce water runoff. To prevent erosion, reduce soil loss, support pollinators, and ensure clean water flowing to their streams, they use prairie strips.

They also use cover crops, which are crops planted to cover the soil. These crops become part of the soil, which enriches nutrients.

Lahn says most farmers aren’t using these regenerative techniques.

“They’re losing soil, the water quality is being affected, and Iowa is seeing the results of a lot of that,” he said. “The good news is there are alternatives and offerings that are not that difficult to move to, to really change this, and that’s what I’m trying to bring to the state of Iowa with incentives. [Farmers] have to have the incentive to be able to do it because right now they have break-even margins.”

Lahns Clean Water Plan Simultaneously Benefits Farmers

If Lahn could implement one policy initiative to help people live healthier lives in his state, he told the Daily Signal it would be to fix the water crisis.

“The biggest issue we’re facing in the state right now is water quality, but also cancer rates, and the two are inextricably woven together,” he said.

Lahn wants to start with funding the “I Will Program,” a state-codified fund that goes to conservation and water quality.

“That will provide the funding that we need to start with the most affected areas in the state: the Raccoon River, the Des Moines River, and these tributaries that are amongst the most polluted in the country,” he continued.

This is where Lahn would begin incentivizing farmers to take up regenerative farming practices to prevent runoff and continued contamination of the water supply.

“We can then stack incentives so farmers don’t lose money or break even but actually make money by doing this with long-term, easement-style agreements that they can sign up for,” Lahn said.

“I believe a lot of farmers, once they realize that they can make money by doing this, and they know it’s what they likely want to do in the first place, and it’s the right thing for the community, that they will do this. And they’ll be happy to do it. That’s my true belief,” he concluded.

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