As Family Farms Fade, Urban Power Rises

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/10/21/us/politics/iowa-senate-elections.html?partner=res&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1&referrer=

Iowa cornfield
agriculture.com

Hello Everyone:

Recently, yours truly posted an article about about dying village culture in China.  Here, in the United States, a venerated culture is also dying, farms.  Farms, particularly those in the state of Iowa are giving way to the growth of cities in the "Hawkeye" state.  In his recent article for the New York Times, "With Farms Fading and Urban Might Rising, Power Shifts in Iowa," Michael Barbaro looks at this transformation in context to the recently completed midterm elections and its implications for the new political order.

Downtown Laurens, Iowa
iowabackroads.com

Laurens, Iowa is a typical farming community in northern Iowa.  Like many communities in the very American heartland, Laurens is hemorrhaging people. The population has shrunk thirty-two percent over the last ten years.  This alarming drop in demographics has forced schools to merge and sports programs to be cut.  As Joe Kramer, the school superintendent for the Pocahontas school district describes the situation, "It's a struggle for a community to make decisions like this...It's so much a part of our identity"  Meanwhile, two hours south, Dallas county, former farmland encircling Des Moines, faces the opposite problem.  The population is growing, enrollment in its largest districts has swollen over the past decade.  Dave J. Wilkerson, the local school superintendent laments having to tell parents that their neighborhood school has become so overcrowded that the district has to ship students off to a newer school.  "I apologize that we will have to send your children off to a new, state-of-the-art school...I would rather be dealing with this challenge than what Pocahontas has."

Senator-elect Joni Ernst
cnn.com

On November 4, 2014 Iowans elected Joni Ernst, the first new United States senator in three decades.  However, in the heat of a close contest what emerged was the scale "...at which people and power have shifted from its rural towns to its urban areas is emerging as a potent but undercurrent..."  This shift in people and power can be felt in the once commonplace farms that are supporting fewer workers, the surrounding towns are losing young residents, and a traditional way of life is approaching its nadir.  Farm fields are being ceded to corporate headquarters which are attracting waves of citizens to the cities and suburbs, contributing to the state's 4.5 percent unemployment rate.

Downtown Des Moines, Iowa
city-data.com

In rather odd but telling scenes, new housing subdivisions with rustic sounding names such as Stone Prairie and Walnut Creek Estates, are taking hold in Republican precincts west of Des Moines and former office buildings in the more Democrat state capital are being converted to loft-type apartments.  Researchers at Iowa State University analyzed population trends between 2000 and 2013 and concluded that Iowa's metropolitan's areas had grown by 13.3 percent.  Conversely, the exurban areas fell by 3.6 percent, a difference that far outstripped the rest of the midwestern region. These changes have made the state's older, more Republican precincts a brighter shade of red and its Democratic precincts bluer than blue.  Meanwhile, in the growing suburban areas, political leanings are harder to pinpoint-given a heady population mix of "...millennials, religious conservatives, baby boomer libertarians, and Generation X liberals."

Iowa Interstate 80
en.wikipedia.org

Those places "are not red state or blue state.  There are a lot of pastels in there." declared David A. Yepsen, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University and former political commentator for the Des Moines Register. Senator-elect Republican Joni Ernst bested Democrat Bruce Braley, a four term representative with a more urban agenda, by portraying herself as a descendent of Iowa's agricultural heritage.  Despite Mr. Braley's verbal gaffes and a rather humorous political commercial showing off Ms. Ernst's hog castrating skills, the contest highlighted the white hot urban-rural divide, encapsulated in a Des Moines Register poll which gave the newly elected senator a 4-to-1 advantage over Mr. Braley among rural voters.  This point was further underscored, during a debate, when Ms. Ernst asked Mr. Braley why he had foresworn his root roots.  Mr. Braley replied "I have not forgotten my rural values."

Iowa farmland
theatlantic.com

Now that the dust has settled in this contentious election, sparked by the retirement of Senator Tom Harkin, what is clear is that Iowa "...is a swing state grappling with changes that defy long-held assumptions.  Its farmers are emerging as leaders in sustainable energy, its rural towns are becoming magnets for Latinos, and it cities laboratories for high-tech start-ups."  Outgoing Senator Harkin commented that the election hinged on the candidate that acknowledges the changed landscape.  "There is this ideal of Iowa..."  Those who left the farms "aren't too far removed from those small town." Mr. Harkin added this caveat, "they know they are not going back."

Laurens, Iowa store fronts
flickr.com

John Stumpf is one those people that is not going back.  A generation ago, his grandmother operated Treasure Chest, a consignment business presently located on a sad retail strip in Laurens that without question, would have been passed down to Mr. Stumpf.  Business is excruciatingly slow and Mr. Stumpf, a film major at the University of Iowa, found small town life unsuitable.  Mr. Stumpf said, "There is nothing for me here," a statement that his grandmother, Millie Burnham, reluctantly agrees with. Ms. Burnham added, "Everything is closing...School will, eventually," ventures Mr. Stumpf.

In the sixties, Laurens' population hovered around 1,800, by 2000 that number was down to 1,476, finally by 2010 that number dropped to 1,258.  The story is the same across Iowa: once vibrant farm communities have been decimated: first by the farm crisis in the eighties, then by technological advances that encourage bigger farms and fewer workers. "As of 2011, Pocahontas's farming industry employed 764 people, about half as many as in 1980."  Those who remain are mainly registered Republicans.  Susie Mayou is one such conservative who says she is "...heartsick that Democrats had carried Iowa in six of the last seven presidential elections. 'If Iowa gave power based on land ownership, the state would swing 180 degrees...The city people push the agenda.'"  John Stumpf is among those city-destined people.  Despite his grandmother's avowed Republicanism, Mr. Stumpf voted for Mr. Braley.

Des Moines, Iowa Starbucks
city-data.com

Downtown Des Moines-there is a stretch of Sixth Avenue, dubbed "Silicon Sixth," home to about two dozen high tech start-ups.  The Des Moines Building, few blocks over, is currently being repurposed as 136-unit apartment building complete with a dog walk terrace.  A full-service supermarket, up the block and a first for the downtown, is under development. The former dull urban core, known for its commuter friendly bankers's hours and bland skywalk system, is becoming more cosmopolitan.  The population has doubled in the last ten years and 1,500 new housing units are being planned.  The result is Polk County, home to Des Moines,  registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by approximately 20,000 is becoming more influential in state politics.  Musician Mickey Davis was so sure he would leave the state after graduation that he tattooed the corporate logo of downtown Des Moines mainstay, Travelers Insurance, so he would have a piece of the state with him.  Mr. Davis is the program manager for the Des Moines Social Club, a kind of hub for cultural activity in an Art Deco former firehouse.  He declared, "Des Moines...is actually a happening place."

               

Latino Gothic
now.uiowa.edu

Iowa has a 92 percent white population, hardly a hotbed of racial diversity.  Wade Rathke, the founder of the social activist group Acorn, wrote in 2008 "so white that you almost need special glasses to pick the people out from the snow banks."  All jokes aside, as during his visit to Iowa, Michael Barbaro took a drive down Main Street with city council member Pete Rodriguez.  As Mr. Rodriguez drove, he pointed out the homes of Latino Iowans.  The city of Denison, in far western Iowa, is an example of how Latino immigrants are remaking the midwestern landscape. Denison, home to meat-packing plants that need low-wage workers, Latinos compose about 42 percent of the population-double the number a decade ago.  Migrant towns like: West Liberty, Storm Lake, Muscataine, and Marshalltown dot the state.  Demographic data reveals that 168,000 Latinos presently live in Iowa, making up the largest minority group (6 percent of the population) and that number is expected to increase because the Latino population is significantly younger and has a higher birthrate than Caucasian Iowans.  Thus, Mr. Barbaro concludes "the power of the Latino vote is more potential than reality."

Latino entrepreneur in Iowa
iseadventures.org

That potential power Latinos in Denison has yet to materialize at the ballot box.  Mr. Barbaro reports, "Not long ago, the mayor, Brad Bonner, cracked open a binder contain the city's voting rolls in search of Hispanic names.  'There were 12 of them,' he said. 'They don't vote.'"  Community activist Patricia Ritchie explained at local coffee shop to explain why this is the case.  Mr. Barbaro describes the scene at the coffee shop, "Inside, Denison's aging power brokers-about 15 bankers, lawyers an farmers-held their weekly breakfast meeting over slices of egg, sausage and Velveeta ccasserole.  They were all white."  "See?" Ms. Ritchie said rather indignantly, "Hispanics in Denison...'are afraid of the white power structure.'"  It is not just about the white power structure, those how have voted in the past were not always heartened by the results.  Vincenta Cardenas, originally crossed the border illegally from Mexico but is now a citizen, twice voted for President Obama.  Ms. Cardenas was disappointed by Mr. Obama's back pedaling on immigration and was not sure if she would vote in the Midterms.

Iowa farmer
nytimes.com

There was an Ernst for Senate campaign commercial which open with idyllic farm tableau featuring windmills and soybean fields.  Joni Ernst talked about growing up on the family farm, walking among the neat rows of beans.  The commercial concludes with "Iowa's pride-of-the-land, suggesting the triumph of entrepreneurial farmers over the bureaucracy of Washington.  'I'll take our values there,' she says of the Senate."  Those values are conflicted by the farmers' growing reliance on government subsidies and tainted by a growing investment in the green economy.  In short, those values that Joni Ernst holds in high esteem are no longer reflexively Republican.  This crosscurrent is evident at the Campbell Grain Farm in Clinton County near Iowa's eastern border.  The owner, Dennis Campbell, a sixth generation corn and soybean farmer, acknowledges that he is part of the contradiction between government overreach and beneficiary of government intervention.

Classic Iowa farmhouse
insurancejournal.com

As Mr. Campbell took Mr. Barbaro on a tour of his property, he walked up to a gas tank, emblematic of federal regulations run rampant.  To reduce fuel deliveries, thus reducing costs and carbon emissions, Mr. Campbell purchased a 10,000 gallon whale of a tank.  Byzantine government regulations mandate that this behemoth be double-walled to prevent leaks, which cost Mr. Campbell tens of thousands of dollars extra. an expense avoided by his neighbors who continue to use smaller riskier tanks.  "I'm being penalized by the government," he said resignedly.

Yet, a few feet away, Dennis Campbell showed off a wall of 256 solar panels of the roof of his shed that will generate sufficient electricity to power the farm.  Mr. Campbell conceded that this money-saving technology was worth it because it netted him some $80,000 in tax credits from the same federal government that demanded he buy the more expensive tank.  For the record, Dennis Campbell supported Joni Ernst in the election.

Game day card stunt
November 1, 2014
iowafarmbureau.com

According to the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, "Iowa farmers received more than $1 billion in federal aid and subsides in 2012." Little wonder why the hottest policy debate topic, in the recently concluded Senate race, was a federal measure that guarantees a market for corn ethanol by requiring energy companies to combine billions of gallons of biofuel with gasoline for automobiles.  Tea Party favorite Ms. Ernst stated she was philosophically opposed to the Renewable Fuel Standard rule, which prompted a series of attacks from her opponent, yet she declared that she would protect the fuel measure.  This made the Iowa Corn Growers FAC unhappy, in turn, they endorsed Mr. Braley.  Ms. Ernst sounded a similar dissonance over the role of human activity in global warming and is cautious about government mandates to reduce carbon emissions.  Mr. Braley supports government regulations to mitigate climate change, such as stricter fuel efficiency requirements for automobile manufacturers.  Meanwhile, the farmers reached their own conclusion about sustainable energy: profitable.  Harold and Virginia Olson, farmers in Calhoun County have a windmill on their farm.  Gamesa energy company pays them $6,000 annually to use the family land.  Mr. Olson says, "It's our land...We should capitalize on it."