Family, business and American agriculture

In a recent speech, Bernie Erven emphasized the importance of hiring good workers, especially in the struggling farm industry. A central part of the movement to modern hiring practices focused on a movement away from traditional familial hiring practices. NPR's blog The Salt covered the speech and the potential implications of moving away from hiring from within families. In the article, Jessica Stoller-Conrad noted that the argument to hire in a more "professional" way would likely be a tough sell to most farmers in America.

With non-family farms making up only 2% of the farms in America, the movement away from employing family members would present a drastic demographic shift. While the designation of family farm does not necessarily mean that all employees of the farm would be family members, the shift away from predominately hiring family members could present a dramatic departure from family farm traditions. The USDA defines a family farm as having a substantial amount of labor provided by the family.

Erven spoke directly to the employment of family members, noting that it is essential to still interview family members when hiring them to work on family farms. While interviewing family members prior to hiring may result in more qualified people being hired, a shift away from having a substantial amount of labor be performed by family may result in the farm failing to meet USDA's definition of a family farm. Beyond the legal requirements and implications on farm loan programs, the decreased availability of jobs may end up encouraging young members of rural communities to migrate to urban areas to find jobs.

From a purely economic lens, Erven's argument likely has merit. Hiring skilled farmworkers as opposed to under-qualified family members may appear to economists as the most sound economic choice. While the Farm Bill has been extended for another year, the delay in passing the House of Representatives may indicate an uncertain future for farm subsidies. The introduction of hiring practices that are focused on qualifications instead of familial connections may appeal to those who are focused on the American farm as an economic driver. But can the farms of rural America be reduced to solely economic entities?

A conversation concerning the current or ideal role of farms in American society is perhaps more appropriate in a longer post. However, attempts by the Federal Government around family and agriculture could frame the discussion in interesting ways.

In June of 2011, U.S Fish & Wildlife Services hosted public meetings to discuss the purchasing of conservation easements in California's Central Valley. The project being called the California Foothills Legacy Area and is being marketed as a way for ranching families to stay on their land while protecting the land for wildlife. Many private property rights advocate groups and the California Cattleman's Association came out in opposition of the project. Strong opposition has also been voiced over the past year by private citizens who described the project as the "federal government's greedy hand."

It is interesting to think about the California Foothills Legacy Area's presentation of family as a central reason for the project. The focus on family as an integral aspect of American rangeland echoes the centrality of family in American farmlands. Despite the current centrality of the identity of family in farms and rangeland, shifting demographics and migration is changing the make-up of rural communities. Would a shift away from a central identity of family change the place of farms and ranges in American culture?

North Dakota now

Don't miss Chip Brown's piece, "North Dakota Went Boom" in this week-end's NYTimes Magazine. I like this excerpt:

It’s hard to think of what oil hasn’t done to life in the small communities of western North Dakota, good and bad. It has minted millionaires, paid off mortgages, created businesses; it has raised rents, stressed roads, vexed planners and overwhelmed schools; it has polluted streams, spoiled fields and boosted crime. It has confounded kids running lemonade stands: 50 cents a cup but your customer has only hundreds in his payday wallet. Oil has financed multimillion-dollar recreation centers and new hospital wings. It has fitted highways with passing lanes and rumble strips. It has forced McDonald’s to offer bonuses and brought job seekers from all over the country — truck drivers, frack hands, pipe fitters, teachers, manicurists, strippers. It has ginned up an unreleased reality show called “Boomtown Girls,” which follows the lives of “five bold and brave sisters” in the formerly drowsy farm center of Williston, N.D. Williston, whose population has tripled in the past 10 years, lies in the middle of the 150,000-square-mile Williston Basin, a depression in the crust of the earth that geologists now believe contains one of the largest oil fields in the world.

More rural v. urban in the gun control debate

Like other journalists in recent days (read more here and here), Dan Frosch suggests a rural-urban divide on the issue of gun control in this story in today's New York Times.  The headline is "Some Sheriffs Object to Call for Tougher Gun Laws," and the gist of Frosch's spin on rural-urban difference regarding this very current issue follows:

Over the past several weeks, dozens of other sheriffs from across the country have reacted with similar public opposition to Mr. Obama’s call for stiffer gun laws, releasing a deluge of letters, position papers and statements laying out their arguments in stark terms. Their jurisdictions largely include rural areas, and stand in sharp contrast to those of urban police chiefs, who have historically supported tougher gun regulations. 

* * *  

Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which generally supports changes in gun laws, said that because sheriffs are often in charge of local jails and deal with mentally ill inmates, they were also more likely to view mental health as the most pressing concern. 

Mr. Wexler, whose group researches law enforcement issues in major cities, said urban police chiefs had long been more receptive to gun control measures because they handled gun crime on an everyday basis.

Beyond these differences between what sheriffs see and do and what city police chiefs see and do, Frosch's story, dateline Denver, suggests that gun culture is just different in rural places.  He provides some colorful quotes from the sheriffs  of Weld and Larimer counties in Colorado.  

The former said,

I don’t plan on helping or assisting with any of the federal gun laws because I have the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Constitution on my side. ... Let the federal government do their own dirty work.

The latter wrote in a post to his Facebook page,

As Sheriff, I will not enforce unconstitutional federal laws.

Oh, and there's a colorful photo of the Weld County sheriff, surrounded by men in--you guessed it--cowboy hats.

Yet its worth noting that both Weld County is part of the Combined Denver-Aurora-Boulder Metropolitan Statistical Area, and Larimer County is in the Fort Collins-Loveland Metropolitan Statistical Area.  The former is the ninth most populous county in the state, the latter the sixth most populous.  

An interesting depiction of the rural South

You can find it in the lede to this NYT story out of Midland City, Alabama, the story about the apparently mentally ill Vietnam vet who has kidnapped a five-year-old and is holding the child in an underground bunker.  The man took the child, who has no known connection to him, after killing the bus driver who was transporting the child on Tuesday.

The headline is "Small Town in Alabama Confronts Boy's Kidnapping," and the lede follows:

Many things hold little Southern towns together. There is a common love of the region, the peace that comes with a rural life and, often, prayer. 

In this town of 2,300 in the heart of peanut country, people drew on all of those as they endured what by Thursday night had stretched into an unimaginable situation.

While this story lists the population of Midland City as 2,300, wikipedia lists it as 1,703.  Surrounding Dale County has a population of 50,044, and is part of the Enterprise-Ozark Micropolitan area. 

Tiny Kentucky town defies rural stereotype about LGBT bias

Dan Barry reported today from Vicco, Kentucky, population 318, with the headline "Sewers, Curfews, and a Ban on Gay Bias." Earlier this month, Vicco became the smallest municipality in the country to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation.

After reporting this news in his wonderfully inimitable way (describing the city commissioner meeting down to the fact that it took place in a former pool hall, with the commissioners sitting on lawn chairs), Barry comments on what might be considered the obvious:

Admit it: The Commission’s anti-discrimination vote seems at odds with knee-jerk assumptions about a map dot in the Appalachian coal fields, tucked between Sassafras and Happy. For one thing, Vicco embraces its raucous country-boy reputation — home to countless brawls and a dozen or so unsolved murders, people here say. For another, it is in Perry County, where four of every five voters rejected President Obama in the November election.

He goes on to explain how Vicco came to make history in this way. You see, Vicco's mayor, 50-year-old Johnny Cummings, is gay.  Cummings is a hair dresser whose salon, Scissors, is just a few doors down from City Hall, and he grew up in Vicco.  Cummings says he never hid his gay identity. "[T]he occasional rude encounter while growing up was nothing that he and his protective friends couldn't handle," Barry writes.

Barry next explains how the anti-discrimination measure got on the City Commissioners' agenda:   

This place-in-progress called Vicco was one of a handful of municipalities to receive a request last year from the Fairness Coalition, a Kentucky-based advocacy group for people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. 

The request was to adopt an anti-discrimination ordinance.  It turns out that Mr. Cummings's sister, Lee Etta, is active in the coalition.  The city’s attorney "trimmed the coalition’s 28-page ordinance proposal down to a couple of pages," and earlier this month, it passed 3 to 1, with members of the Fairness Coalition in attendance for the vote.  

One commissioner who voted for the ordinance, 56-year-old retired coal miner Claude Branson, Jr., said Mr. Cummings's presence had little influence on the matter.  He explained, "We want everyone to be treated fair and just."  

Don't miss the multi-media slide show accompanying this story.

Rural kids as part of the "great migration"? what great migration?

David Brooks column in the NYT a few days ago, "The Great Migration," is--in Brooks's own words-- about "the race between meritocracy and government."  Brooks advocates meritocracy, which he implicitly acknowledges increases inequality, but which he sees a having considerable upsides.  "On the other side," Brooks asserts, "there is President Obama’s team of progressives, who are trying to mitigate inequality."

Yes, oddly, Brooks sees meritocracy as being at odds with a reduction in inequality.  But his articulated dichotomy relies on an unusually naive definition of meritocracy.

Regarding "meritocracy," Brooks explains:

First, there is our system of higher education, which is like a giant vacuum cleaner that sucks up some of the smartest people from across the country and concentrates them in a few privileged places. 

Smart high school students from rural Nebraska, small-town Ohio and urban Newark get to go to good universities.

Brooks continues in a way that builds his arguments that smart people gravitate to smart places, and if they came from places that aren't so "smart," as measured by the lack of social capital, with a focus on education and degrees, then they aren't likely to go back:

In the dorms, classrooms, summer internships and early jobs [these smart students, now in college]  learn how to behave the way successful people do in the highly educated hubs. There’s no economic reason to return home, and maybe it’s not even socially possible anymore.

This is what Brooks sees as the success, if you will, of what he calls "meritocracy." He goes on to say that both of the Obamas and most in their administration are beneficiaries of this system, along with "many people who read this newspaper and many of us who write for it."  (That latter assertion is, I would say, supported by columns like this, which seem to assume that most high school students have the world at their feet when it comes to choosing a college; Bruni seems completely unaware of the elitism that permeates this presumption when less than a third of those in the U.S. above age 25 have even a bachelor's degree, let alone one from a selective institution like those he discusse).

But I am not so sure that Brooks has his facts right.  First, I don't know that our system of higher education takes in the "smartest people from across the country."  Admittedly, Brooks hedges his bets here by saying "some of the smartest people."  Yes, the elit(ist) education system takes in some smart people, alright, but given the proliferation of legacy admits and the well documented link between wealth and higher education access in this country, I am not persuaded.  Indeed, based on a 2003 study by Carnevale and Rose, the Economic Policy Institute released a graph showing that 74% of those from the top income quartile attend top universities, while just 3% of those from the bottom income quartile do so.  See similar analysis by the NYT here.

Indeed, Bowles and Gentis found in a study published in 2002 that "parental wealth and income are strong predictors of the likely economic status of next generation" but that "IQ is not a major contributor."  You are starting to see why I doubt that the "smartest people" really are populating "good universities."   

Yet Brooks insists that these processes he calls meritocracy and migration "work."  What he overlooks is that they work for the privileged few because most of those who attend these "good universities" were destined to be there.  They are not there because they are smart--or at least not merely because they are smart.  For them, being at a "good university" is a matter of birthright.  For the few other lucky ones--the ones who really are migrating from somewhere else (literally/geographically, or up the class hierarchy) to be part of this elite milieu, some "learn how to behave the way successful people do in the highly educated hubs."  Others do not, as Jason DeParle documented in this Dec. 2012 story.

Second and as  related matter, I also am not convinced by Brooks's assertion that smart high school students from rural places get to "good universities," as he defines them.  Let me be clear that I think the University of Nebraska (to continue his use of Nebraska to represent "rural") is a very fine university, but Brooks later makes clear that he is talking about the "smartest people" getting into really good schools.  I assume he means Ivy League institutions, the so-called little Ivies, and the handful of elite schools out here on the West coast.  (He uses the Obamas as examples of this phenomenon, and collectively they went to Occidental, Columbia, Princeton and Harvard, as he notes.) The premier recent study on elite college admissions, however, suggests that rural kids don't often get to these universities--at least not those kids I consider rural.  That is, if "rural" kids get in, they are probably already privileged, e.g., the kids of the local physician, or of a college professor or otherwise well educated parents in a high-amenity nonmetropolitan community.  In short, they are among the predestined, if also nominally "rural."

Princeton sociologists Thomas Espenshade and Alexandra Radford in their 2009 book, No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal, found that high school students who worked part time or participated in ROTC, FFA, 4-H, and other similar activities caused them to be seen as "careerist" by elite college admissions officers.  Such activities diminished the students changes of admission to elite colleges and universities.  Gone, it seems, are the days when holding down a job while performing well in school made you look industrious--and therefore virtuous.  Also gone, apparently, are the days when elite college admissions officers had any inkling of how the other half--make that the other 90%--lives.  Not only do these college admissions officers not appreciate industry, they don't seem to know that kids attending rural high schools don't have available them to a vast array of extracurricular activities available to the metropolitan teenager.  Read more commentary on Espenshade and Radford's book here, with links embedded.

Do rural high school students go places?  of course.  Some will get college degrees, though very few from elite universities.  Will some return home afterwards?  Will some remain part of the rural brain drain?  The answers to both questions is "yes."  But precious few, if any, will make it into the highest echelons of government.  Robert Byrd did it in his generation.  Tom Daschle did it in his.  But who in Congress or the Obama administration represents rural interests--or working-class interests--from a first-hand perspective now?  Who will do it in the next generation?  (By "first-hand" I mean it is not enough to be able to say that one's grand parents grew up poor during the great Depression or lived through the dust bowl).

Third, while I agree with Brooks that the Obamas are beneficiaries of this meritocracy, I disagree that the majority of those in their administration are.  Indeed, as I wrote here, the Barack and Michelle Obama are about the only two people you can find in their administration who are not silver spoon babies.  The others were predestined, as a Yale alum once told me, to become the leaders of the free world.

Meritocracy?  Hogwash!  What the Obama administration is seeking to do (I hope!) is diminish social inequalities so that real meritocracy--a truly level playing field--can flourish.

"Rural"--or a proxy for it--in Obama's second inaugural speech

Rurality made a somewhat obscure appearance in the speech on Monday:

Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.

(quoted by Charles Blow here)

 I figure Detroit represents the city, and people of color. Appalachia represents the country, and underprivileged white folk. Newtown represents suburbia, though many in the wake of the December massacre there referred to it as a "small town." Thus Obama covered the rural-urban continuum in expressing his concern for all children.

Here is a link to my post about rurality's appearance, such as it was, in Obama's first inaugural address.

Angst over gun laws in "rural" states

The New York Times reports in a front-page story today on responses from folks in various states to recent proposals to tighten assault weapon ownership, "Democrats in Senate Confront Doubts at Home on Gun Laws."  As the headline suggests, a commonality among these states is that they each have at least one Democratic Senator.  Another is that they have significant swaths of rural territory and/or wilderness:  Alaska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, West Virginia, Minnesota, Colorado, and Montana.

The story's dateline is Beckley, West Virginia, and here's an excerpt focusing on gun politics in that state:

If there is a path to new gun laws, it has to come through West Virginia and a dozen other states with Democratic senators like Mr. Manchin who are confronting galvanized constituencies that view any effort to tighten gun laws as an infringement. 

* * *  

As a hunter with an A rating from the National Rifle Association, Mr. Manchin gave advocates for new weapons laws reason for optimism after he said last month that gun firepower and magazine capacity might need to be limited. 

But now, Mr. Manchin, who affirmed his support for gun rights by running a campaign commercial in 2010 showing him firing a rifle into an environmental bill, says he is not so sure. One of his local offices has been picketed, and even some of his most thoughtful supporters are cautioning him that stronger background checks are about all the gun control they can stomach.

An earlier post featuring Senator Manchin's initial comments following the Newtown school massacre is here.

An item more explicitly linking guns to rurality is this opinion piece by former Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, regarding his successful fight for gun control down under.  He initially addresses who was in Parliament when a gunman in Port Arthur, Tasmania killed 35 in April, 1996, prompting his initiative for greater gun control:

I was elected prime minister in early 1996, leading a center-right coalition. Virtually every nonurban electoral district in the country — where gun ownership was higher than elsewhere — sent a member of my coalition to Parliament.

Of the Australian battle for gun control, he continues:  

Our challenges were different from America’s. Australia is an even more intensely urban society, with close to 60 percent of our people living in large cities. Our gun lobby isn’t as powerful or well-financed as the National Rifle Association in the United States. Australia, correctly in my view, does not have a Bill of Rights, so our legislatures have more say than America’s over many issues of individual rights, and our courts have less control. Also, we have no constitutional right to bear arms. (After all, the British granted us nationhood peacefully; the United States had to fight for it.)

* * *

City dwellers supported our plan, but there was strong resistance by some in rural Australia. Many farmers resented being told to surrender weapons they had used safely all of their lives.

* * *  

Passing gun-control laws was a major challenge for my coalition partner: the rural, conservative National Party. All of its members held seats in nonurban areas. It was also very hard for the state government of Queensland, in Australia’s northeast, where the National Party was dominant, and where the majority of the population was rural.

For a piece that is more optimistic about the possibility of achieving greater gun control following the Newtown massacre, see this.

Postscript:  A story in the January 26, 2013 edition of the New York Times is about a fundraiser by the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police, which will give away one rifle each day in May to those whose names are drawn in a raffle.  The organizers have already sold all 1000 tickets, at a price of $30/each. Some of the guns that will be given away are assault rifles, which has added to the controversy over the raffle.  Two New Hampshire gun manufacturers, Sig Sauer and Sturm, Ruger & Company, are co-sponsoring the fundraiser.

Making the point that gun ownership has a strong cultural component, which may be linked to hunting or to rurality, Lorraine Peterson of Litchfield, who was shopping at a gun store in Claremont, New Hampshire, is quoted in the story:

Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is — they’re just talking about it because of Sandy Hook.  I don’t mean to sound insensitive. This is New Hampshire. This is a sport.

Rural communities and obesity: The struggle for healthy living

When the term “rural” is heard, many people think of small communities that face serious problems including access to healthcare, poverty, and transportation. However, one thing that is often overlooked is access to healthy food. The Rural Assistance Center reports:

Due to distance and limited transportation options, shopping for healthy food can prove difficult for those living in areas not served by a major grocery chain.  

 Further:

For millions of Americans—especially people living in low-income communities of color— finding a fresh apple is not so easy. What can be found, often in great abundance, are convenience stores and fast food restaurants.

Consider the following anecdote: 

Anne, a mother of a small child, decides to spend her Saturday grocery shopping. While this may be an hour or perhaps two-hour excursion for a mother living in a middle-income metropolitan area in the U.S., it is an all day trek for Anne who lives in an underdeveloped rural area.

In order for Anne to get to a grocery store she must take three buses and walk several miles just to reach the store, all with a small child. Once Anne enters the store, she is tired and her child is fussy and angry, the first thing Anne does is grab a coke and hand it to her child, simply to calm him so she can concentrate.

While shopping, Anne is limited in what she can purchase, because anything she buys has to be something that will last, processed foods and canned goods are typical purchases. Anne is further limited by the fact that she can only purchase what she can carry on the journey back, at most two bags of groceries. Lastly, Anne can only buy what she can afford, which limits her ability to buy fruits and vegetable, which are typically more expensive in rural areas.

Once Anne is finished, she is faced with several hours of travel back home. Throughout the week, Anne will be forced to supplement her groceries with foods purchased from local convenient stores and fast food restaurants that are easily accessible.

As can be seen, access to healthy foods is a major contributing factor to obesity in rural areas. This problem is not entirely the fault of poor decision-making or bad parenting; it is also a product of lack of access. Another study reported childhood obesity in urban areas was hire even when differences in diet and exercise were taken into account.

Diet alone is not the only problem in rural communities when it comes to obesity. In addition, rural communities often face problems regarding exercise. The Rural Assistance Center reports that, contrary to popular belief; rural citizens are not more active on a daily basis than citizens in urban or metropolitan areas. This is partly due, again, to access. Many rural areas have less exercise facilities, less physical education in school, and fewer parks and other outdoor recreational areas.

Although there are several ways to combat access to exercise in rural areas, many of them require money and resources these areas might not have. Often suggested are classes on nutrition and healthy cooking classes. However, in areas where healthcare is already limited, this may not be an option.

A better plan is to concentrate on solutions people in the community can implement themselves, at little or no cost. Some programs could be walking clubs, or other health related organizations put together by members of the community. Authorities and experts often report that weight loss and diet change are more successful when done in groups.

Although access to physical activity may be something that can be easily changed with awareness and at a low cost, easy access to health food is a much bigger problem facing citizens in rural communities. Providing better transportation and more grocery stores in rural areas is not a project to be undertaken lightly.

Place as emotional safety net

One of the most emailed items in the New York Times today is this Opinionator column, under the heading/series Anxiety, titled "You Are Going to Die."  The author is Tim Kreider, identified as "the author of “We Learn Nothing,” a collection of essays and cartoons. His cartoon, “The Pain — When Will It End?” has been collected in three books by Fantagraphics."  Kreider starts his column by recounting his observations from a recent visit to the assisted living facility his mother has announced she is moving to, and the column touches on several related themes, including old age and illness, and how society tends to segregate these populations and otherwise make them invisible.

But then the column takes an unexpectedly nostalgic turn about Kreider's own childhood.  In writing about his mother's impending move into what he describes as a very pleasant facility, he notes the implications of that move for him:

But it also means losing the farm my father bought in 1976, where my sister and I grew up, where Dad died in 1991. We’re losing our old phone number, the one we’ve had since the Ford administration, a number I know as well as my own middle name. However infrequently I go there, it is the place on earth that feels like home to me, the place I’ll always have to go back to in case adulthood falls through. I hadn’t realized, until I was forcibly divested of it, that I’d been harboring the idea that someday, when this whole crazy adventure was over, I would at some point be nine again, sitting around the dinner table with Mom and Dad and my sister.

Clearly, Kreider has a strong association between childhood and place, with the farm where he grew up (location unspecified).   Of course, people who grow up in urban locales can also experience such strong attachments to place, but Kreider's had such a rural flair that I couldn't resist featuring it here.  

Swarthmore president featured in NYT as former "farm girl"

The New York Times just ran this little profile feature about Rebecca Chopp, president of Swarthmore College, under the headline "From Farm Girl to College President."  It's one of those "rags to riches" tales--well, not so much "rags" as bumpkin farm girl and not so much "riches" as ivory tower success.  But I guess that is the point:  just as we see a sharp divide between "rags" and "riches," so we see a chasm between "farm girl"and "intellectual."  In response to the reporter's query about being the first in her family to go to college, Chopp says:

My father had a farm in Kansas and worked in construction. My mother taught me to read, but my parents didn’t think that girls should go to college. 

I ended up at a big state university, the kind with 600 kids in the Chemistry 101 class, and I was a student who had had no pre-college preparation. In high school, I studied home economics and sewing. I dropped out my first year. 

I later went to a small liberal arts college, thanks to financial aid and working several part-time jobs.

The journalist notes that Chopp, who has also served as president of Colgate University and Dean of the Yale Divinity School, holds "events" for first-generation college students.  This suggests she has a special understanding of the barriers--emotional, economic, and otherwise--that these students face--whether or not they grew up on farms.