Story perspectives

Officials Condemn Chris Jones’s “Weeks a Year” Remarks

8/13/2026

Summary

Story summary

Chris Jones, candidate for Iowa secretary of agriculture, said farmers are wealthy and work only weeks a year.
Iowa Field Report posted a 2021 Ideas Conference video hosted by the Cedar Rapids Gazette that captured Jones’s remarks.
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, Attorney General Brenna Bird, and Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann denounced the remarks as a horrible message from a radical liberal and called Jones a radical environmentalist.

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Story summary

Chris Jones, candidate for Iowa secretary of agriculture, said farmers are wealthy and work only weeks a year.
Iowa Field Report posted a 2021 Ideas Conference video hosted by the Cedar Rapids Gazette that captured Jones’s remarks.
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Naig, Attorney General Brenna Bird, and Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann denounced the remarks as a horrible message from a radical liberal and called Jones a radical environmentalist.