Derek Wulf, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, says he’s been able to secure refinancing for his Black Hawk County farm.
Wulf spoke at the Westside Conservative Club in Urbandale yesterday and a woman in the crowd told Wulf she was “doing (him) a favor” by asking about his finances in front of “a friendly audience.”
She then asked: “Can you share with us how you’re going to frame your financial situation to make it consumable and palatable to the people out there? ‘Cause it’s coming up.”
Wulf called it a fair question. “Every family farm out there right now is trying to figure out how to navigate through higher input costs, lower commodity prices and figure out how to survive,” Wulf said.
Earlier this month during a court hearing in Orange City, Wulf’s attorney wired a payment to settle Wulf’s $186,000 debt from last October for about 2000 pigs. This spring, an attorney for a bank in Independence sent Wulf a letter threatening to start foreclosure proceedings on Wulf’s farm.
“My farm, we started going through a farm refinance back in, starting in December, right?” Wulf said. “LG was never on my agenda. Farming is on my agenda, but the biggest reason I’m standing here is for that exact reason because if we don’t change this thing, family farms are going to disappear folks. They already are.”
Wulf told the crowd Iowa has “strong financial lenders” who are willing to “stick it out” during a downturn in the farm economy. “We were able to refinance our farm and we’re moving forward. And is it tough? Yes, it’s absolutely tough. And were those discussions tough? Absolutely, but I will tell you this: farmers are resilient in the state of Iowa,” Wulf said. “I like to think our farm is resilient as well and we’re going to get through this, just like every other family farm right now.”
Zach Lahn, the Republican candidate for governor, recently said he chose Wulf as his running mate partly because of his experience as a farmer and rancher and “understanding the struggles that farmers are going through right now.”
Wulf has served in the Iowa House since Janaury of 2023. During an interview on Iowa PBS earlier this month, Lahn also cited Wulf’s track record as a legislator and his support for a bill to give farmers the right to repair and modify equipment they own, rather than being forced to get the work done by a technician at a licensed equipment dealer.
