“Instead of doing a moratorium or being anti-data center, why don't we make Iowa the place of innovation for data centers? We've already had so much innovation, closed-loop systems using way less water. Why don't we encourage tax incentives for existing data centers to modernize those systems, so that we're not stuck with some of these relics? … They've been in communities for decades and we never felt or heard anything about them until recently. I'm not saying it's not due to real concerns, but it's nuanced like any industry is.”
The Prairie Farm Podcast · October 2026
Context
A co-host worried about a gold-rush approach in which early data centers consume resources before the technology gets more efficient. Inman proposes steering incentives toward newer, lower-water designs rather than a moratorium.
Transcript
complex feelings. The attitude of just
…now. And then down the road, as you say, the thing evolves, it becomes more streamlined. It becomes more efficient. Well, we used up, you know, half or more of the resources we need to do the job anyway in the first iteration of whatever it is we're tackling. And now we're behind that eight bowl.
Well, and that's, you know, you're the second person that's brought this up to me. And I had a conversation on Friday with someone and we were talking about this and they're in the same space. And it's like, okay, instead of being a more, instead of doing a moratorium or being an anti-data center, why don't we make Iowa the place of innovation for data centers, right? Like we've already had so much innovation, like, you know, closed loop systems, right? Those are using way less water. But, oh, now there's some new technology that's even making that seem, you know, archaic and using less water and less water, et cetera. And the same with the energy. Why don't we encourage like tax incentives for existing data centers to try that new technology or modernize those systems to start to be the leader in innovation in that way? And so that we're not stuck with some of these relics. We have some of the oldest and biggest data centers for certain companies in the world. We had, like, we're already there. And we were already there way before people knew about it, right? You know, we had a lot of data centers before it became like my husband and I were talking about this. He's like, we used to call them server farms, right? And so if you start thinking about that, they've been in communities for decades and we never felt…
Yeah. I mean, if we're not careful, farming will just be run by data centers. You know, it'll just be autonomous autonomous vehicles. And I mean, we are at a theme watershed and the winner of the startup competition was a self-driving robot that goes around and puts down nitrogen. Do you remember…
I feel like I have to like preface this a little bit because you're going to be like, the takeaway, everyone's going to be like, Great Outdoors Foundation is funding nitrogen.
No, I was going to say. No, responsible application. No, they put down 70% less nitrogen and got it to the plant root targeted in timing. Yeah, it was cool.
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