The challenge

The interrelationship between town and country is particularly evident in such states as Iowa, where the economy has long been dependent on agriculture. “It’s important to help urban people better understand how the corporatization of agriculture isn’t just about farmers – it also impacts the safety of their food and water,” says Hugh Espey. He also works to help rural Iowans realize that “predatory lending isn’t just a city problem – that these companies are exploiting the growing poverty that exists in rural Iowa.”

Among the issues that Iowans and many Americans face is the future structure of the livestock industry: whether livestock will be raised on diversified, sustainable family farms, or produced in large, energy- and capital-intensive factory farms. In Iowa, factory farms have created an oversupply of hogs, depressed prices and driven small- and medium-sized farms out of business. At the same time, well-paying industrial and meatpacking jobs that once served as buffers against hard times, for both urban and rural people, are no longer available. Half of these traditional industrial jobs have disappeared, and those that remain pay only about half what they did in 1980.

Seeds of commitment

"I work with people who have watched their children move away and their standard of living decline as well-paying jobs disappeared,” Espey says. “I see the farmers struggle to find a way to stay on the land. Some are working all day at off-farm jobs and farming at night just to get by." His source of strength comes, in part, from an understanding of seasons and harvest, and the patience required in nature. "I'm greatly influenced by knowing that the issues we work on won't be won overnight. They are won a step at a time. But there comes a day when you can look back with people and say, 'We did that.' There's tremendous empowerment and dignity for people in that."

Accomplishments

As executive director of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI), Espey helps Iowans bring social, economic and environmental justice to their communities. With more than 2,100 dues-paying members, CCI works in both urban and rural areas of the state. “Unlike some groups that are staff-driven or dependent on a handful of leaders, CCI has people across the state who own the organizing and take an active role in fighting for justice," he says. Iowa CCI’s work on factory farm issues has produced tangible results. During recent decades, CCI members have stopped nearly three dozen factory farms from being built, forced state environmental officials to levy fines and issue violations against polluters, initiated nuisance lawsuits, and launched a statewide campaign to establish air quality standards for factory farms. The organization held farmer-to-farmer workshops to show how to farm profitably with fewer chemicals, and helped bring $6 million in additional Emergency Conservation Program funds to Iowa to assist farmers who had been hurt by record floods and rains.

Among many other accomplishments, Iowa CCI also helped farmers stay on the land and urban residents purchase homes by negotiating agreements with lending institutions that resulted in approximately $32 million in credit for small- and midsized farms and more than $100 million in mortgage loans to low- and moderate-income urban homeowners. CCI’s organizing also helped legislators pass the Iowa Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act, which spells out the rights and responsibilities of both tenants and landlords and provides tenants with additional options to obtain decent housing. To help lower-income Iowans pay for their utility bills, CCI joined with the Coalition for Affordable Energy (CABEL) to push the state to create an Affordable Heating Payment Plan, which allocated $500,000 in heating-bill assistance.

Leadership style

Espey believes leadership and organizing are most effective when they start locally and build. "I begin by connecting people within their own community – breaking down the isolation that keeps people from doing anything about the problems they face. Then I can help them see their connection to people throughout Iowa facing the same issues," he says. In the mid-'90s, CCI recognized that state-level opposition to corporate agriculture was not enough. "We decided to begin working with leaders from rural organizations in other states that had just formed a coalition called the Campaign for Family Farms," he says. Through that campaign, CCI helped connect thousands of hog farmers from around the country into a network "to do something no one thought we could -- win a national referendum to end a hog-industry marketing program to which farmers were forced to contribute. The “mandatory pork checkoff,” as the requirement was called, “was generating $1 million a week to advance the corporate takeover of agriculture," says Espey.

CCI also builds across ethnic lines. CCI's new Latino-led chapter is encouraging people to "expand their definition of who their neighbor is and redefine who is responsible for the problems they face," he says. At CCI's 2003 statewide convention, members met with farmers from an agricultural political movement in Mexico. "Not only were farmers able to recognize their common struggle against corporate agribusiness, but consumers were also able to see the dangers of a centralized food system." By organizing diverse constituencies, CCI's members have learned an important lesson: "‘When I get to know you, your fight for justice becomes mine,’" he says. Espey also believes that, whenever possible, organizing should be fun. “If organizers can't laugh, they'll burn out. One of the benefits of this work is that CCI organizers will never be short of stories to tell their grandchildren.”

The future

Espey considers his most important organizational achievement to have moved CCI “from total dependence on churches, foundations and government agencies for funding.” Becoming a dues-paying, membership-based organization was better – not only because of added financial stability, but also because members feel a sense of ownership and control. His goal: double CCI’s membership during the next few years, with a special focus on recruiting minorities. He also will dedicate more of his time to CCI' s new Voter-Owned Elections Campaign, which educates Iowans about the negative influences of concentrated corporate money in politics.

More about Hugh Espey and Iowa CCI

“An Iowa citizens' group once viewed as an easily ignored, anti-establishment band of rabble-rousers has scored a string of victories, gaining the ear of business and political leaders. (CCI) activists say they stand up for residents who need help in taking on City Hall, the state's powerful farm industry, bankers and landlords. ‘They are a citizens' army,’ said state Sen. Jack Hatch.”
- Des Moines Register, October 5, 2003

"Most people I work with have never really fought for something, so they don't know how to win. They're so concerned with being nice and keeping the approval of neighbors that they get run over. I push the envelope with them, encouraging them to take the kind of actions they have never taken, but they need to take if they want to win."
- Hugh Espey