"DESTINY CALLS":

These turbine leases are the lynchpins in a multipronged, mutually beneficial arrangement that makes Iowa one of America's most prolific producers of renewable energy. The system brings together farmers, energy companies and the federal government to capitalize on two of Iowa's most prominent resources: strong winds and vast expanses of land. The result is thousands of megawatts of green energy, reliable income streams to offset bad harvests, and substantial private sector profits aided by generous federal tax credits. 

"It's just like another crop," Leng says of his turbines from behind his desk at the Primghar Savings Bank, which he's owned since 1994. "It's diversification. If the weather doesn't cooperate and we don't have enough corn and soybeans, we might have enough wind."

According to the U.S. Department of Energy's 2021 Wind Energy report, some 57 percent of the power generated in Iowa last year came from wind -- the highest share in the nation. And Iowa is second only to Texas - which produces more wind power than most countries -- in the total amount of wind power it is capable of producing. A politically conservative state that voted for Donald Trump twice over, Iowa is a trailblazer in the clean energy sector. And the bulk of all this wind power was captured in what Iowa is known best for: corn fields.  

Since 2005, when federal tax breaks incentivized energy companies to invest heavily in wind, agents from these companies have fanned out across the Hawkeye State, visiting Iowa's rural farms and ranches to convince the owners to install turbines, many of which soar well over 200 feet in height, among the rows of their crops. 

Nowhere is MidAmerican's presence more evident than in O'Brien County, centered smack dab in the middle of Northwest Iowa's economically lucrative Wind Belt. While already profitable for cash crops -- its loose black dirt means bragging rights for century farms -- O'Brien County has the capacity to produce up to 752 megawatts of energy (enough to power roughly 150,400 homes), making it one of the top-producing wind power counties in the United States. 

For 18 years, energy behemoths like MidAmerican, Invenergy in Chicago and Mortensen in Minneapolis have flocked in droves to places like O'Brien, Ida County and Palo Alto County, touting property tax benefits to county auditors, and offering cash-in-pocket -- $10,000 to $15,000 per tower -- to farmers who sign on the dotted line. With sustained winds that often clock 30 m.p.h., O'Brien County is to wind what Saudi Arabia's Ghawar Field is to oil and natural gas.

For Jablonski, who was one of those energy company agents on the ground in the early aughts, the trifecta of benefits is a no-brainer: "The better the wind resource, the more wind generation, the more renewable energy for our customers."

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