As Jess Bray pulled up to a 21-acre farm nestled in an eastern Oklahoma valley, she instantly got a warm feeling. “This is the place,” she thought. 

After attempting to buy two other properties before being outbid by cash buyers, Bray and her husband Jon began to wonder whether their dream of owning and operating their own farm would become a reality.

“We always wanted to farm, but we aren’t trust fund kids, we didn’t grow up in agriculture … we didn’t have a farm handed down to us, so it wasn’t something that was very accessible to us,” Bray said. “This was a dream come true … but it wasn’t without challenges.”

In 2022, Bray, then 39, purchased the valley property, which they now operate under the name Blue Mountain Farm, growing a variety of vegetables, and raising pigs and a dairy cow near the town of McCurtin.

While Bray eventually realized her dream, the rising cost of farmland has priced out many other would-be farmers and ranchers or forced others into early retirement. The parts of the country where farmland prices have seen the largest increase have also been where the number of agriculture producers has declined the most.

From 2017 to 2022, the average value per acre of all American farmland grew from $4,368 to $5,354, an increase of nearly 23%, according to USDA data on the market value of farmland and its buildings.

But in the 409 counties across the country that saw a producer decline of 15% or greater over the past five years, average farmland values increased by 31%, according to Investigate Midwest’s analysis of USDA reports, land value records and other property data.

In reviewing property records and speaking with more than a dozen officials who closely track farmland values, Investigate Midwest found there are multiple causes for the decline in producers in counties that saw the most significant increase in value:

• Population growth expanding into rural communities has increased prices and reduced farmland as 11 million acres of agricultural land were converted into residential properties from 2001 to 2016, according to the American Farmland Trust.
• The push towards wind and solar energy, often backed by government subsidies, has also raised land rents much higher than for traditional agricultural use. 
• Large investment firms, such as Farmland Partners, PGIM and Gladstone Land, are paying top dollar for land and reselling some property at amounts as much as five times higher than the regional average. 
• The move towards industrial farms has also meant more corporate land buyers who can pay cash and beat many local offers. 

“The biggest competition (for farmland) used to be from the person who wanted a hobby farm but maybe wasn’t farming full time,” said Vanessa Garcia Polanco, a policy campaign director with the National Young Farmers Coalition. “Today, the biggest threat we see is from corporations and hedge funds.”

The increase in competition for farmland has been especially detrimental for young and would-be farmers. According to a 2022 National Young Farmers Coalition survey,​​ 59% of farmers under 40 said finding affordable land was “very or extremely challenging.”

Farmland ownership has received increased attention from lawmakers in recent years, especially concerning foreign-owned companies. Lawmakers in dozens of states have pushed laws limiting foreign land ownership, including from countries like Iran and China, often claiming these buyers drive up costs that push out family farms. 

However, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently called that focus misguided and said the growth in American investment firms buying farmland is a more pressing concern. 

“Do you know roughly a third of all the farming operations that generate more than $500,000 in sales are owned by investment outfits? Are you concerned about Wall Street owning farmland?” Vilsack said in response to a question about foreign-owned land while speaking at the North American Agricultural Journalists conference in April.

But Paul Pittman, the executive chairman of the investment firm Farmland Partners, said companies like his were not to blame for rising prices and were keeping many farms in production. 

“That’s populist B.S. and nothing less,” Pittman told Investigate Midwest when asked about Vilsack’s comments. “And remember, for every farmer who is whining about being outbid, there’s a farm family that owned that farm for 100 years and deserves to get the highest price possible.”

Investment firms significantly increase farmland holdings

In the spring of 2023, the Farmland Partners investment firm spent $8.85 million in cash on 1,840 acres of farmland in Haskell County, Oklahoma. The land was a highly productive swath of soybean, corn and wheat fields with an irrigation system pulling water from the nearby Canadian River.

The Denver-based firm had grown in recent years to become the nation’s largest farmland investor, with a valuation of more than half a billion dollars and a portfolio of more than 180,000 acres across the country.

One of the firm’s land buys in Oklahoma was a 174-acre property for $3 million. At $17,232 an acre, the Oklahoma purchase was five times more than the median for comp sales in the area, based on data from the land value tracking site AcreValue. 

However, the firm had shown that its high purchase prices were likely to pay off. It had recently sold nearly 2,500 acres of farmland in central Nebraska and South Carolina for a combined $16.2 million, a transaction that netted Farmland Partners a 24% return on investment, the company announced.  

According to data from the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries, investment firms increased their farmland holdings by 231% from 2008 to 2023. While traditional real estate property is constantly expanding, many investors see the decrease in available farmland as a partial driver of its value. 

Most farmland investment firms lease the land back to producers who operate the entire farming business. In a recent SEC filing, Gladstone Land, which owns 111,836 acres of farmland across 15 states, said it rents most of its land to farmers on a “triple-net basis,” which means the tenant pays the related taxes, insurance costs, maintenance, and other operating costs in addition to rent.

However, Pittman, the chairman of Farmland Partners’ board of directors, said there are signs that more farmers are struggling to afford rents.

“There’s a little more trouble out there than there was 12 months ago ... and we’re seeing it in having an occasional farmer come to us and say, ‘Hey, can you re-rent this farm to someone else?’ ”Pittman said on a May 1 investor call, according to a transcript. “When we’ve had that occur, we’ve been able to (re-rent) the farms at the same price or in some cases, a little bit higher.”

Asked about Vilsack’s comments, Pittman said declining commodity prices are pinching some farmers. 

“Starting in about 2019, commodity prices started to go up pretty fast, but here we are in 2024, and commodity prices have pulled back,” Pittman told Investigate Midwest. “This is a low margin business … so when you see a little bit of a drop in commodity price, it can challenge (a farmer) financially.”

However, Pittman said his firm’s investments remain solid because, in the agriculture sector, “bankruptcies are minuscule.”  The 2022 farm bankruptcy rate was 0.84 per 10,000 farms, its lowest rate in nearly 20 years. 

While most farmland is rented to producers, there are times when an alternative use can fetch even more money. Wind farms can attract lucrative rents and often allow the land to remain agricultural. However, the growth in solar farms, which also attract high rental rates, usually means the land can no longer be used to grow crops or raise livestock because of the large solar panels near the ground. 

“In Illinois, for example, a farm that may rent for $400 to $500 an acre a year for agriculture, rents for $1,250 to $1,500 a year for solar, and the farmer cannot compete with that,” Pittman said. “To be honest, (when I’m wearing) my fiduciary obligation to my investor's hat, if somebody offers us $1,500 an acre, it's going to go to solar. But wearing my Paul the citizen hat, I'm not sure that's a great thing.”

Industrial farm growth led to a ‘hollowing out of the middle’

In most counties that lost producers, agriculture production actually increased as the remaining farms often grew larger or were converted to industrial operations. 

Wisconsin’s Douglas County, located in the state’s northwest corner, lost 31% of its producers from 2017 to 2022 but saw net cash farm incomes more than double and sales from agriculture products increase by 45% during that same period. 

Across the state, five counties saw a producer decline of at least 15% yet also saw agriculture production sales increase. 

“Many operators continued to exit, and this happened rapidly among Wisconsin dairy farms,” said Jeff Hadachek, an agriculture professor at the University of Wisconsin. “At the same time, the farms that remained were increasing in size.”

Hadachek said the increase in farm production means the local economy may still be growing even with a loss of producers. 

“I think economists would typically say that just looking at the number of farms is not the best way to consider economic health in a community,” Hadachek said. “Certainly, for the people who own land, the increase in value is a great thing … so there are two sides of the issue for sure.”

Like most types of farming, Wisconsin’s dairy industry has seen a move towards more industrial operations to improve efficiency, which can increase profits in a sector with tight margins for smaller dairy farmers. 

In 1997, the average Wisconsin dairy farm had 55.6 cows, while the 2022 average topped 203 per farm, according to research from the University of Wisconsin.

Some farmland investors see profit opportunities in the transition to larger farms and are predicting a continued shift toward industrial agriculture. 

“An aging farmer generation, fractional family ownership structure and technological advances requiring sizable capital investment will naturally transition farmland holdings from individuals to institutions,” stated a report from PGIM, the $10 billion property asset management company run by Prudential Financial that has increased its farmland holdings in recent years.  

Hadachek said the growth in larger operations has led to a decrease in medium-sized farms, what he calls a “hollowing out of the middle.”

“The growth in the larger end reflects consolidation and the economies of scale and size associated with large farms, while the growth in the smaller end reflects growth in specialty foods, farms targeting the ‘local foods’ market, and hobby farming,” Hadachek said. 

But Pittman, the executive chairman of the investment firm Farmland Partners, said data on the decline in the number of farms across the country can be deceiving. 

From 2017 to 2022, America lost 141,733 farms, but 80% of those lost farms had less than $2,500 in annual sales. 

“You and I know those aren't really farms, I don't know why they're called farms,” Pittman said. “If you're talking about supporting a family or two families on a farm, you are talking about at least a million dollars in annual sales, which would give you about $50,000 in distributable household income to send your kids to school and pay for food and all that.”

USDA data shows the nation lost 10,537 farms with annual sales of $100,000 to $499,999, but farms making more than $500,000 grew by more than 26,000. 

Some states, nonprofits work to protect farmland from development

Construction sounds have become a constant echo in McCurtin County, Oklahoma, where cabins and resorts are being built in the pastures and forests between the Ouachita Mountains and Red River. Tourism growth, especially visitors from the Dallas metro, which is within a two-hour drive, has increased local farmland prices much faster than the state average. 

From 2017 to 2022, McCurtin County lost nearly one out of every five producers while the average value per acre soared from $1,901 to $2,601 as investors, second-home buyers, and some private equity firms snatched up land to build vacation homes or sit on the land while its value grew.

“When someone’s waving that kind of money at grandpa’s farm, they let ’em have it,” said Brent Bolin, a poultry producer in McCurtin County, who is also a state agriculture commissioner.  

In a recent report titled “Farms Under Threat,” the American Farmland Trust found that between 2001 and 2016, more than 11 million acres of farmland was converted to urban and residential use, with Texas, California, Arizona, and Georgia topping the list. 

To stall the urbanization of farmland, the American Farmland Trust, a nonprofit that says it wants to expand the “conservation agriculture movement,” has facilitated the purchase of more than 78,000 acres to protect it from nonagricultural uses. 

Some states have taken similar measures, including Oregon, where counties must protect some farmland through specific zoning restrictions. 

Bolin said zoning restrictions might be worth considering, although he’s hesitant to suggest them. 

“It’s something that would be super controversial and I don't know where I stand on it,” Bolin said. “I know there are some states that help protect farmland, but that is more regulation and we don’t like that here in Oklahoma. But I don’t know what the answer is.” 

Even if farmland is protected from being converted into another use, young farmers still struggle to compete with cash buyers. While many of those cash-buyers, including investment firms, rent the land to farmers, critics say that creates a system that lacks stability for farmers and ranchers, especially those looking to start a business for the first time. 

“The contract could be a three-year lease or a five-year lease, but that’s not much long-term security for a farmer,” said Polanco with the National Young Farmers Coalition. 

Bray, the Oklahoma farmer, said owning land was crucial for her to have the kind of control she wanted over her business. It also allowed her to make more environmentally focused decisions about land use. 

But when Bray was looking to buy land, competing with cash buyers was even more difficult because her own financial options took a long time to fulfill. 

“Not only did we have to finance but we were kind of forced into a commercial funding route instead of the state program route because the government programs take too long,” Bray said. 

The National Young Farmers Coalition has advocated for the Farm Service Agency to be made a loan-making institution with pre-approval and pre-qualification processes to give farmers needing financing a better chance at competing for land. 

“This would allow farmers to show they are eligible, especially if the seller wants an offer right away and has a cash offer from a corporation,” Polanco said. 

Even when Bray was able to purchase her current property, complications arose from the land’s previous owner, a cash buyer who made a quick purchase. 

“Moving in, it took us months and months and months to get in our property because of how it was handled before,” Bray said. “The title had never been transferred, so we had to wait for that to be transferred to the prior owner before it could be transferred to us. And there was official paper that they had run out of stock on, somebody forgot to order the official state paper for the licenses and titles and all of that, so that was another waiting game.”

During the delays, Bray’s Realtor warned them they might have to move on to another property.  

“He said, ‘Honey, if you don't get this, don't feel bad, we'll keep looking,’ ” Bray recalled. “But I said, ‘No, we will wait,’ because … I had that feeling when we got here that this was the place. This was our dream, but you know, high interest rates, the prices of the properties and the margins as a farmer, those three things don’t go together, they just don’t.” 

The post As investors pay top-dollar for land, farmers are often priced out appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in Keep It Rural, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder. Like what you see?  Join the mailing list for more rural news, thoughts, and analysis in your inbox each week.

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Imagine, for a moment, a world in which a former U.S. president is nearly assassinated, a Republican vice presidential nominee is announced, and the current U.S. president and presumptive Democratic nominee drops out of an election occurring not even four months from now, all in the span of roughly one week. 

Oh, yeah! We don’t have to imagine, our reality really is this absurd. 

I am still reeling from the past week, but of course, the news cycle races on so my journalist brain is already onto the next question – what does all this mean for rural America? 

The most likely Democratic nominee is Kamala Harris (enough Democratic delegates say they will back her, according to an AP survey, to clinch the nomination), but the former Bay Area prosecutor doesn’t have much of a rural track record. 

However, her association with President Joe Biden, who made large investments in rural America through the novel Rural Partners Network and laws like the Inflation Reduction Act, Infrastructure and Investment in Jobs Act, and Chips & SCIENCE Act, could bode well for rural under a Harris administration.

As vice president, Harris was tasked with being a spokesperson for reproductive rights after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. Earlier this year, she visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul, Minnesota, to see how the Midwest has been affected by abortion bans. The issue is likely to be a central talking point in her campaign if and when she’s officially declared the Democratic nominee. 

Harris’ other focus as VP has been on immigration. Since 2021, she’s helped secure private sector investments from companies like Nestle and Target to create local jobs in Central America in order to decrease migration into the U.S. Whether this actually worked is debatable: the number of undocumented folks hailing from nearly every region of the world who moved to the U.S. grew by half a million people between 2021 and 2022, according to Pew Research Center data. 

Lastly, Harris has worked to codify voting rights protections. She was one of the biggest proponents of the now-stalled Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act that would have expanded voter registration and access, and established Election Day as a federal holiday. 

All three of these focus areas intersect with rural interests. Abortion access in rural communities is limited because of the location of abortion clinics (and as clinics have been shut down in more red states, rural folks have had to travel even farther). Medication abortion by mail is another option for rural folks, but many states have restricted access to medication abortion and one state – Arizona – has fully prevented its delivery by mail.

Immigration has also proved to be a hot button topic, with a Gallup poll from early this year showing it as a top issue for voters. Immigration is likely to be front of mind for folks living in the rural border regions of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. 

Voting rights protections also have big implications for rural America where voter turnout is the lowest, in part because of barriers like mail-in ballot restrictions and fewer in-person polling locations. 

Rural voters are likely to be an essential voting bloc this presidential election. A 2023 survey from the Center for Rural Strategies (publisher of the Daily Yonder) and Lake Research Partners suggested as many as 37% of rural voters could be swayed by either party. 

Harris’ work as VP intersects with rural interests nicely. (In a Venn Diagram, perhaps?) Pair that with expanding the Biden administration’s work to invest in rural America, and she could make headway with some rural voters – if she chooses to pay attention to them.

The post What Would a Harris Presidency Mean for Rural America?  appeared first on The Daily Yonder.

John Wayne once said, “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” Courage was on full display at last month’s 10^th annual De Golyer Bucking Horse & Bull Bash Rodeo in Fallon, Nev.

The affordable, family-friendly event happens every year on the last Saturday of June. If you didn’t get a chance to see all the action in person this year, the Sierra Nevada Ally has you covered.

For many participants in this year’s event, rodeo is more than just a sport; it’s a way of life.

Every year, Kristina and Cody de Golyer host the Bucking Horse & Bull Bash Rodeo at the Fallon Fairgrounds in Fallon, Nev. Rodeo goers got to enjoy Mutton Bustin’, Jr. Steer, Bull Riding and Barrel Racing events, among many others. This year, the rodeo had the honor in welcoming back the International Trick Riders.

This year’s event was not only a big milestone for the de Golyers, who were celebrating the tenth year of the rodeo. It was also 4-year-old Storm Jackson from the Shoshone Nation’s first attempt at Mutton Bustin’.

“It was fun!” he said, as he got some help putting his cowboy hat back on his head.

Another young participant who was excited to ride the Jr. Steers was Justin Sherman. The 13-year-old has been riding for a year-and-a-half, and had taken part in ten rodeos. He is inspired by his uncle who also participates in Professional Bull Riders (PBR) rodeos.

For 16-year-old Ray Valdez, it’s all about riding colts. He’s been riding for two years, thinking he would start riding bulls. But after his first rodeo, he instead got hooked on riding colts.

“I love the feeling being up there, when they jump, and I am up in the air. It’s a great feeling,” he said.

The annual de Golyer Bucking Horse and Bull Bash happens every June. So if you’re looking for a rodeo event without the large crowds found at the Reno Rodeo, this trip to Fallon might just be the way to go.

You’re at least guaranteed to see some courageous riders of all ages.

Patrick Braxton is overwhelmed with gratitude.

He’s been juggling a yearslong legal battle to serve as the lawful mayor of his hometown, Newbern, Alabama. After years of harassment, his rural town enters a new chapter: Its first Black mayor will finally get to serve. 

Braxton will be reinstated as mayor of Newbern, according to a proposed settlement reached on June 21. The settlement awaits the signature of U.S. District Judge Kristi K. DuBose. After 60 years of no elections, residents will get to exercise their right to vote. The town has also pledged to hold regular municipal elections beginning in 2025.

In nearly a year since Capital B was among the first to report on Braxton’s fight, he has garnered support locally and nationally.

On a recent morning in May, he traveled nearly three hours from his hometown to Mobile for a preliminary injunction hearing, asking the courts to demand the town hold regular elections in November.

When he and his council members arrived, they were met by a busload of more than 30 residents who also traveled nearly three hours to showcase their support.

In 2020, Braxton became the first Black mayor in Newbern and experienced harassment and intimidation for doing so. However, the previous majority-white town council blocked him from the post.

He and his council filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against them in 2022 for conspiring to deny his civil rights and position because of his race, challenging the racially discriminatory voting and electoral practices in Newbern in the process, Capital B previously reported. 

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Read More: A Black Man Was Elected Mayor in Rural Alabama, but the White Town Leaders Won’t Let Him Serve

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For at least 60 years, there’s been no elections in this 80% Black town of fewer than 200 people, which Braxton’s attorneys argued is a violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Act provides an avenue to challenge states and jurisdictions using racially discriminatory voting policies.

Since 2020, when Braxton ran for mayor, he says some white residents have moved away.

Though the court denied the request to hold an election in November, Braxton didn’t feel defeated. In fact, he felt optimistic.

“I knew I was gonna be able to serve again, you know,” he told Capital B in a phone call last week. “It’s just how long it was gonna take for us to get some kind of resolution first for this.”

This week, that long overdue resolution came.

When he received the news that he’d get reinstated, Braxton shared it with his pastor, who exclaimed, “Finally. It’s been a long time coming. You know if you pray, change will come.”

This win in Newbern is important because it shows citizens nationwide can still use the courts to be heard, despite the attacks on the Voting Rights Act, said Morenike Fajana, co-counsel on the case and senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund Inc. 

“It’s important just to highlight Mayor Braxton’s tenacity, and the fact that this is a four-year battle that he’s had to fight in different courts and at different levels — and now finally, a court is going to say, ‘Yes, we agree. You were wronged. And you were the mayor,’” Fajana told Capital B. “I think that is very inspirational and important. And it’s also very sobering, just the amount of work that it takes and time that it takes to have your rights vindicated.” 

Setbacks, frustration, and the will to keep fighting

For the past few years, it’s been a heap of long nights and early mornings for Braxton, a volunteer firefighter for years.

Not only was he locked out of the town hall and forced to fight fires alone, but he was also followed by a drone and denied access to the town’s mail and financial accounts, he told Capital B last year. Rather than concede, Haywood “Woody” Stokes III, the former white mayor, and his council members reappointed themselves to their positions after ordering a special election that no one knew about. 

“It hurt my heart because I couldn’t do what I wanted to do,” Braxton said. “We had some plans to do some work in Newbern. … It might not have been the time for us to do it.”

The setback didn’t stop him, he said. He’s hosted several community events for the youth and the town’s elders. Two months ago, he used his personal funds to feed more than 125 people at his church, First Baptist. This week, he helped plan a Fun Day Out, a type of summer reading program, at the local library. 

He’s also been working overtime to build a racially diverse city council amid the lawsuit. He wakes up early in the morning, knocking on doors and “running down people” to talk to him. In 2020, no white person seemed interested. 

That has changed. 

He will submit his list of interim council members to Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey for confirmation. If the governor does not affirm the positions, she must notify the Hale County probate judge to declare a special election, which Braxton will administer, the settlement states.

One of those people: his “ride or die” Janice Quarles, a Newbern native and plaintiff who volunteered to serve on Braxton’s council in 2020.

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Read More: How Some States Are Responding to the Worst Attack on Voting Rights in Decades

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The most stressful part of this journey for Quarles has been finding adequate legal representation and a listening ear to hear their concerns. 

“It seemed as if we weren’t moving. It seemed to me as if we weren’t being heard,” Quarles said. “By being from such a small little town, I kind of felt like we weren’t getting enough attention. But eventually, we kept pushing and got into the courts.”

With the recent news, she is beyond “elated” and hopeful it will bring together the community across racial lines.

“We don’t do a lot of integrating. We don’t do too many things together. But I just feel that it’s gonna be a change because sometimes it has to work on both sides,” Quarles said. “I’m just filled with joy because … there always comes a time for change — everywhere in every country, every state, every city. And now the time has come for us here in Newbern.”

While this chapter is closed, the fight is not over, Braxton said. He’s hoping his journey will inspire others.

“Like I told the pastor, I’m not fighting for myself,” Braxton said. “I’m fighting for all the younger generations coming up behind me. They can do the same thing and be successful in this town. You don’t have to move away from your hometown just to accomplish something. We finally got the door open for me, so y’all can come in. I don’t want to hold this seat forever.”

The post After Years of Litigation, First Black Mayor in Rural Alabama Town Gets to Serve appeared first on Capital B News.

Many young Appalachians, regardless of later political affiliation, can recall the childhood moments they learned how free they were to voice their own thoughts about contentious topics with family members. Julia Pritt, 24, originally from Hurricane, West Virginia, recalled her excitement the week gay marriage was legalized in June 2015. Pritt and her mother were driving to visit her mamaw and extended family that summer. “We were talking about it in the car,” she said. “And I remember, she told me not to bring it up when we got there.” 

Pritt did experience strong objection to gay marriage from some of her extended family. However, before the Supreme Court opinion had come down, Pritt had a different conversation with Mamaw, the family matriarch. “I remember my mamaw saying, ‘I never understood why that’s such an issue for people because that’s love. And that’s beautiful.’” Pritt remembered how her grandmother had spoken about gay marriage when she herself came out as bisexual: “I felt comfortable to have an explicit conversation with her even though it was really hard and scary.”

Within the national media, stories about adults who feel their children have shut them out over political or social issues are common. But for some young adults, there is eagerness to start those discussions, especially about issues that directly impact them, like poverty, workers’ rights and gender. Sometimes, that can be difficult.

When Grace Davis, now 20, was 17 and living with her devout Catholic grandparents in Hurricane, she was reading articles about abortion, which she was aware her grandparents opposed under any circumstances. But she was compelled to tell her grandfather how she felt: “we shouldn’t ban it, because even though they’re banning it, they’re really not. They’re just — like, I had to explain to him that they’re banning it being done safely.” With a “seventeen-year-old explaining things to a seventy-something-year-old man,” she said, the conversation got “a little heated.”

Others echoed Davis’ experience. Levi Cyrus, 23, a registered Independent who described himself as “open minded,” takes issue with his family’s belief that “[Trump is] the best option for everybody” and voiced his own thoughts. “That conversation didn’t go over well,” he said. Now he sometimes avoids talking politics: “I don’t like being put in the middle of things.”

Cyrus said he believes people of all generations are too focused on issues of identity rather than putting resources towards issues that affect everyone, such as policing, homelessness and schools. He says his experience as a customer service representative has taught him that “everybody wants the same thing…living somewhere where you don’t have to worry about your next meal.” 

Media and the political moment have super-charged conversations 

Many of those who spoke to 100 Days in Appalachia noted that political discussions had become harder to have over time, and some attributed this difficulty to Fox News, the Trump presidency or social media. 

Reid, a 22-year-old librarian in eastern Kentucky, asked his last name be withheld to protect his privacy. He said has noticed a change in the way older Appalachians learn information. “I find especially with older people that I work with, not just my relatives…they don’t know how to sort misinformation because they have, at least a decade ago, decided that this was a trusted source. They haven’t re-decided if it’s still a trusted source now.” Pritt mentioned that a lack of broadband internet in rural areas means many older Appalachians may be relying only on cable TV for information, with no chance to evaluate different sources online.

One study from Harvard Kennedy School’s Misinformation Review found that the “prior exposure effect” — a phenomenon in which the more a person sees a claim made, the more accurate they think it is — is stronger in older adults. This may create outrage over a handful of flashpoint issues. 

Reid, who is transgender, explained that while trans issues are important to his everyday life — “my ability to access health care, and my ability to attend my friends’ weddings and to see people and to have a community and to exist” — his family members are stuck on his identity as a point of debate. 

“It doesn’t matter what conversation I’m in, even if I don’t bring it up, I tend to have the adults in my life, especially my relatives, bringing it up for me,” he said. Not only are arguments over “why trans people exist” dehumanizing, said Reid, they dominate conversation and exhaust him. “Not to look at the concepts with sort of rose colored glasses,” he said with a pained laugh, “but I think I’d like to be able to go to a cookout and not get berated.”

Some young people find alternative partners for conversation and information outside of their parents or grandparents. For Grace Davis, it was a campus pastor who was willing to have an expansive conversation about abortion. Still, she says, she doesn’t know “if I would have those types of conversations with like, anybody older than me, without…reading the room.” When talking to members of older generations, she censures herself: “‘Is this actually a good idea to think these thoughts out loud?’” 

Intergenerational communication is a two-way street 

Reaching out for conversation happens in reverse, too, with some older adults trying to stay involved with the young people in their lives. Julia’s mother, Dreama Buck, 54, recalled her approach to talking about politics with her children. In 2010, Buck went back to school to become a college English teacher and brought the classroom discussion techniques home. “As I was processing critical thinking and research skills, I was sharing those with them and really instilled in them that you can argue whatever you want to argue, but you better bring the receipts,” she said. 

These days, Buck chats often with her kids’ friends, who are typically open to discussing political and social issues with her. Buck also prioritizes asking clarifying questions “when I feel like I don’t know enough about what they’re talking about, or if maybe I disagree.”

She said that while, in her view, older adults might be more likely to be closed-minded, she’s seen the tendency across generations and believes social media algorithms contribute to that. Buck attributed this attitude to “an unwillingness or maybe just a lack of awareness that things that are outside [one’s] experience can be true.” 

Chris Bailey, 36, is the campus minister who has become a conversation partner for Davis. He enjoys conversations with college students in his ministry group because they are “still open to experience.” 

“There’s a lot more work that has to be done to deconstruct and get at the heart of a real deep talk with someone who’s more certain of their beliefs,” Bailey said. He explained that being willing to learn about each other, and developing a “relational foundation,” is key to intergenerational conversations.

Hovering over much discussion of intergenerational conflict is the assumption that young people are too quick to pull away from older relatives over “differences of opinion.” Several young people expressed that a difference of political opinion, when it concerns identity issues or civil rights, can cross the line into personal disrespect. For young people who “feel unsafe around someone or feel degraded to such a degree that their humanity is being taken from them, that’s not a relationship that [they] need to pursue,” Bailey said.

Young Appalachians emphasized their longing to have conversations with older generations that have shared goals of understanding and listening with curiosity, habits they are working to develop, too.

Alex Monday, 24, a lifelong West Virginian, found she was unable to have “polite discussions” with most family members growing up. When she was young, she felt she was “the only person to defend me at any point. So I became a fierce defender.” She credits therapy with helping her have complex conversations as an adult: “communication errors happen all the time, you’re going to hurt your friends’ feelings…that’s always going to happen in any relationship, regardless of everything. It’s having the resolve to sit and talk about it [that’s important].” 

Monday is still learning, and knows perception isn’t foolproof. She recalled a moment recently where she was at the mall and saw two men wearing t-shirts with pro-gun slogans and trucker hats — she assumed they had nothing in common with her. 

“And then they put their hands in each others’ back pockets, and then they kissed, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, I was so wrong about you.’” 

Originally from Virginia, Hannah Wilson-Black is an environmental writer and 2023 Pulitzer Center Reporting Fellow based in Huntington, West Virginia. Her work has appeared in Grist, Terrain.org, and The Daily Yonder. She is at work on a novel about a disgraced coal baron.

The post Young Appalachians Want Better Intergenerational Political Conversations appeared first on 100 Days in Appalachia.

Campbell County Republicans don’t like the party’s 2024 platform. They feel the national party, at Donald Trump’s behest, softened the language against abortion and same-sex marriage, in particular.

Politically, the new language makes sense if Trump wants to cut into Democratic margins among suburban voters — something that’s probably not top of mind for Republicans in Campbell County, a place where Trump took 71% of the vote four years ago. Morally, you can make your own judgments.

Cardinal’s Markus Schmidt wrote about Campbell County Republicans’ concerns last week.

This raises several questions: What does the rest of the Republican platform actually say? Or the Democrats’ draft platform, for that matter? And, perhaps, more importantly, does any of it matter?

Historically speaking, the answer to that last question is “not very much.” A party platform offers useful insight into a party’s philosophy, but there’s no guarantee that any of it will become law. From 1972 to 2016, the Republican Party platform explicitly called for statehood for Puerto Rico, but no Republican president actually did much to make that happen. Given how our two parties are realigning, now might be a good time for Republicans to push for Puerto Rican statehood as a way to add some electoral votes — the island currently sends a Republican to Washington as its resident commissioner — but I digress.

What matters more is the presidential candidate’s platform, or the views of the advisers around that candidate, which is why Democrats have talked so much about the “Project 2025” document that the Heritage Foundation has put together. Still, the Republican platform is very reflective of Trump’s worldview, so I was curious to take a closer look at both that and its Democratic counterpart to glean any insights about what a Trump 2.0 administration — or a Kamala Harris administration — would mean for Southwest and Southside. There aren’t many insights to be found. 

That’s not a criticism, just a factual observation. In 2016, the Republican platform was 66 pages long. This year, it’s 28 pages but is really just 12 pages once you account for all the pictures. (Of course, four years ago there was no platform at all.) Four years ago, Democrats had a 92-page platform, and their draft platform this year is 80 pages. Republicans may or may not succeed in reducing the size of government but they have definitely reduced the size of party platforms. (Fun fact: In Great Britain, party platforms are called “manifestos.”)

The Republican platform this year is a slimmed-down statement of principles, not a recitation of policy initiatives. Democrats are more inclined to get into specifics, just not some of the ones I wanted to see. What would another Trump administration mean for extending Amtrak service to Bristol? What about a Harris presidency? We don’t know. Even the more detailed Democratic platform isn’t that granular. Both platforms are also larded with lots of political hyperbole, which is entertaining to read but not particularly elucidating. Trying to find policy insights amid all the rhetoric is like sifting for gold and, frankly, there’s not a lot of gold in either of them thar hills.

Let’s see, though, what we can find. Let’s also use this as the opportunity to offer up some facts relevant to each parties’ platforms.

Energy: Republicans like fossil fuels, Democrats don’t

Ok, that’s not exactly news. This is also a place where the rhetoric doesn’t always match the reality.

The Republican platform declares: “Under President Trump, the U.S. became the Number One Producer of Oil and Natural Gas in the World — and we will soon be again by lifting restrictions on American Energy Production and terminating the Socialist Green New Deal.” That implies the United States was number one under Trump but is no longer. 

However, the U.S. Energy Information Administration says that U.S. oil production is higher today than it was when Trump left office, hitting a record of 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023. 

Natural gas production rose sharply under Trump, but has kept rising under Biden:

Trump may want even more oil and gas production, but the reality is that Biden has presided over the nation’s highest oil and production ever — that’s just not something he dares talk about, given the sensibilities of the Democratic electorate. To bring this home to us, remember that it was Biden’s energy secretary who advocated for completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which now pumps natural gas from West Virginia to Chatham. Biden, though, comes from a more traditional school of thought within the Democratic Party. A new generation of Democrats seems likely to be less inclined to support natural gas.

Interestingly, there’s only one fleeting reference to coal in the Republican platform, and that’s when they vow to end “end market-distorting restrictions on Oil, Natural Gas, and Coal.” In 2016, Trump famously campaigned in Southwest Virginia and proclaimed “We’re going to bring back King Coal.” He didn’t. U.S. coal production declined slightly each of four years in office, and then has declined further under Biden (with a slight uptick in 2022, but that may have been skewed by the pandemic years). Perhaps even Trump now understands that it’s market forces that are driving coal down. A few years ago, a utility executive with Appalachian Power explained it this way: Utilities have to make investments with a 40-year time horizon, not a four-year one. They’re not inclined to invest in a technology based on today’s shifting political climate. About 92% of U.S. coal consumption is by utilities, so the declining amount of coal going to those utilities is a good measure of the coal industry:

The Republican platform does make a specific mention of nuclear: “Republicans will unleash Energy Production from all sources, including nuclear, to immediately slash Inflation and power American homes, cars, and factories with reliable, abundant, and affordable Energy.” Republicans have always been more pro-nuclear than Democrats, but nuclear power is slow to build, so no nuclear power will be unleashed “immediately.” Democrats historically have been more divided on nuclear, although the Biden administration has been a strong proponent. However, the Democrats’ draft platform makes no mention of nuclear power at all, and Harris’ only comments have been to express concern about transporting nuclear waste to Nevada.

For what it’s worth, here’s how U.S. energy production has changed. You can see the sharp rise in natural gas, which started at the very end of the George W. Bush administration and has continued almost straight upwards since then, while coal has declined as a result.

The key question for us is unanswered in either party platform: How much will the next administration encourage the development of small nuclear reactors, the so-called “small modular reactors,” or SMRs? Gov. Glen Youngkin once pushed for an SMR in Southwest Virginia but has since pulled back on that. Ultimately, though, it’s utilities, not politicians, who decide where energy production facilities go. Dominion Energy recently announced it has accepted proposals for an SMR at its North Anna nuclear complex in Louisa County, which I’ve long thought made more sense than building one in Southwest Virginia: Dominion already has the infrastructure in place in Louisa. (Disclosure: Dominion is one of our donors but donors have no say in news decisions; see our policies.)

The question is whether we’ll see the next administration encourage even more SMR development — Republicans because they like “all of the above” energy, Democrats because they grudgingly see nuclear as a way to create a decarbonized power grid. If so, we could see utilities looking at other places for SMRs. (A Department of Energy study suggested the Clover coal plant in Halifax County, co-owned by Dominion Energy and the Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, would be a good location.)

Finally, both party platforms say they want the U.S. to be “energy independent.” The Republican platform says: “We will DRILL, BABY, DRILL and we will become Energy
Independent . . .” The draft Democratic platform praises Biden’s emphasis on renewables: “He is positioning America to lead the future — energy independent, resilient, innovative, and strong.”

Now, here’s the reality: We already are energy independent. The U.S. Energy Information Administrations says U.S. energy production exceeded consumption toward the end of the Trump administration, and there’s now a bigger gap between the two under Biden:

We still import some forces of energy (oil) and export others (natural gas and coal) so we may not be energy independent in every sector, but overall, we now are. Feel free to debate whether this has happened because of Trump’s pro-drilling policies or Biden’s pro-renewables policies (or perhaps a combination of the two), but we now produce more energy than we consume.

Both parties want to reshore manufacturing jobs, but how?

Can you guess which party said which?

“We will bring our critical Supply Chains back home.”

“Bring home critical supply chains.”

Answer at the end of this section.

Beyond those bromides, the details vary, such as they are. Trump is, as we know, very focused on what the platform calls “unfair” trade deals but, given the spareness of the Republican document, offers no specifics beyond support for tariffs. The theory behind tariffs is that they raise the price of foreign-made goods and thereby encourage or protect domestic manufacturing, which preserves or creates American jobs. However, if manufacturers don’t take advantage of that economic advantage, then tariffs simply raise the price of goods. Democrats talk at length about technology — promoting domestic manufacture of computer chips, encouraging the growth of green technologies that involve manufacturing and taking credit for providing funding for more than 30 technology hubs around the country. (One of those is Richmond-Petersburg.) That may someday prove to be a transformative policy but the economic reality is that those hubs will take years to build out.

Rather than get bogged down in the back-and-forth of which party is better for manufacturing, let’s look at some facts. 

Manufacturing jobs peaked in April 1979 and declined until they bottomed out in February and March 2010. Many things have driven that: Some jobs have gone overseas to cheaper workforces. Some jobs have been eliminated altogether by technology. Since hitting that bottom, manufacturing jobs have been slowly increasing (with the exception of the pandemic). We now have slightly more manufacturing jobs in the country under Biden than we did under Trump. 

The same trend is true in Virginia (although this chart shows a different time frame). If we don’t count the pandemic, Virginia’s manufacturing base hit bottom in February 2011 and has only increased slightly since, regardless of which party is in power.

That raises a question we don’t often see addressed: Both parties say they want more domestic manufacturing, but what’s realistic? Republicans do the better job of talking about manufacturing: “Revive our industrial base,” they declare. However, we are not going to rebuild the economy of the 1950s. The fundamentals of the economy have changed. 

On a percentage basis, the percentage of American workers in manufacturing peaked in 1953 at 32.1%. By 2022, it was 9.92%. That sounds low. However, keep in mind, global employment in manufacturing is 12.8% — so the U.S. is below the global average, but not that far below.

The U.S. average is on par with many other Western countries — Canada is at 8.93%, Great Britain is at 9.14%. The nation with the biggest share of the workforce in manufacturing is China, where 28.7% are in manufacturing. Chinese workers, though, don’t get paid much, by our standards. That’s one of the conundrums both parties face: How can they encourage more good-paying manufacturing jobs when Americans like to buy cheap stuff? A lot of our manufacturing jobs went overseas for simple economic reasons: Labor costs were lower. Raise the labor costs, and those costs will get passed on to consumers. Neither party likes to talk about that.  

Perhaps the Western country that both parties ought to look to for guidance is Germany: 19.93% of the workers there are in manufacturing. 

As for the question at the top of this section, the first line is from the Republican platform, the second from the Democratic one.

Democrats vow “moral obligation” to coal country

Republicans don’t mention climate at all. Democrats devote seven pages to it. In those, they declare: “Democrats also know we have a moral obligation to make sure that fenceline communities benefit from the clean energy revolution.” The phrase “fenceline communities” is new lingo; I’ve never heard anyone in Southwest Virginia use that phrase, but it refers to communities next door to energy production facilities. This speaks to one of the political problems of clean energy. There really is a clean energy boom taking place. The transition to clean energy really is creating jobs, but it’s not necessarily creating them in the same places where the fossil fuel jobs were. Democrats have tried to address that in the Inflation Reduction Act, aka “the climate bill,” by designating enterprise zones in those “fenceline communities” where clean energy companies will qualify for tax breaks if they locate there. I wrote about these tax break zones in a previous column.

This seems a great idea, but I haven’t seen any action yet, either. Maybe it’s too soon. However, until something does happen, this feels like a meaningless promise. We’ve had enterprise zones of various sorts over the years, sometimes pushed by Republicans, sometimes by Democrats, but their track record is very mixed. Why do Democrats think this will be any different? Actually, I could make the case that it doesn’t matter what Democrats think — what matters is whether there’s any economic action on the ground from the private sector. As the famous Wendy’s ad from the 1980s put it: Where’s the beef?

Republicans vow “largest deportation program in American history”

The Republican platform says: “The Republican Party is committed to sending Illegal Aliens back home and removing those who have violated our Laws.” What it doesn’t say is how many people would be deported, but the phrase “the largest deportation program in American history” at least gives us a benchmark. The largest deportation program to date was under Dwight Eisenhower, when more than 1 million Mexican immigrants were removed in 1954.

What the platform doesn’t get into is the economic consequences of a large-scale deportation. Whether we call them “illegal aliens” as Republicans do or “undocumented workers” as Democrats prefer, this is not a population that exists outside the U.S. workforce. They are part of the workforce, so any deportation will have economic consequences. I wrote in more depth about what this would mean for Virginia in a previous column. The short version: Depending on the scale of the operation, Trump’s proposed deportations might cause Virginia to lose population for the first time since the 1830s. 

The biggest impact of that would be in the construction trades. A port by the Migration Policy Institute (which a report by the Virginia Department of Social Service later referenced) says that 31% of the unauthorized population who are employed and are age 16 and older — about 50,000 people — work in construction. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis says there are 214,400 construction jobs in Virginia as of January 2024. If that earlier 50,000 figure hasn’t changed (and realistically, it’s probably gone up, right?), then we’re talking 23.3% of construction jobs in Virginia becoming vacant.

Another 16% of the employed unauthorized population works in accommodation and food services — 26,000 people, the report says. Now, here’s the figure that might surprise some. Another 16% — another 26,000 — are in professional, scientific, management and administrative jobs.

Immigration has become an emotional topic, but we might want to have a conversation about what the economic impact of deportations would be.

What’s not addressed

Well, lots. Both platforms also chose to include some curious details. Republicans vow to send astronauts “onward to Mars.” Democrats vow to create an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Climate, “modeled on the defense research agency that’s behind breakthrough technologies like the internet and GPS.” Republicans say they will “promote beauty in public architecture.”  Democrats vow more research toward “ending cancer as we know it.” Republicans say they will “defend the right to mine bitcoin.” Democrats say they will “work to get farmers the right to repair their own equipment, without having to pay big equipment makers for diagnostic tools and repairs.”

There are obviously more profound differences between the two parties than how they feel about public architecture, and we won’t be able to look at all of those today. In the end, I doubt most of these details matter to voters — many of whom had their minds made up long before the campaign began. Elections generally don’t turn on party platforms, they turn on emotions and how voters feel about particular candidates or particular parties. 

What we have here is the classic contrast in visions of what kind of country we are and want to become. The Republican platform warns that “we are a nation in serious decline.” The Democratic platform more cautiously says we’re having a “great American comeback” from the pandemic fueled by “a clean energy boom.” 

We’ll find out in November what Americans think of where we are, and where they want us to go. For better or worse, voters feel they have a good sense of what Democrats want to do, since they’ve been in office almost four years now. It’s always the party out of power we’re most curious about. In this case, though, don’t look to the party platform to learn many details. 

The post What the Republican and Democratic platforms say (indirectly) about Southwest and Southside Virginia appeared first on Cardinal News.

On July 21, President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to run in his place, launching her to the forefront of potential Democratic nominees. Harris’ term as VP hasn’t produced many significant policy outcomes of her own, but her experience as a California senator and attorney general, as well as her 2020 presidential campaign, point to a consistent record of pro-climate, pro-environmental policies and an evolved understanding of tribal land issues. Should she eventually assume the Oval Office, her career to date signals a likely continuation of the West’s Biden-era gains in the protection of public lands, water and wildlife as well as support for tribal sovereignty.  

“We couldn’t be more excited,” said Athan Manuel, director of the Sierra Club’s lands-protection program. Harris worked with the organization on bills to expand California’s public lands, increase access to nature and develop community incentives for wildfire prevention. “She understood the totality of these issues, and that gives us great confidence.”

Over the past four years, the Biden administration reinstated protections for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest and conserved more than 41 million acres of public land. It passed the climate-forward Inflation Reduction Act, which was hailed as a windfall for domestic clean energy jobs and a once-in-a-generation wealth transfer to historically marginalized communities. The record bears a striking resemblance to Harris’ own platform for president, which also pursued environmental justice and sought an end to fossil fuels on public lands.

“This was the most impactful one-term presidency on public lands, climate change and environmental justice,” Manuel said. Harris, who was born in Oakland and spent much of her career in California, was also able to provide the Biden administration with insight into regional issues. “A Westerner leading on all these issues is very significant.” 

Prior to joining Biden’s ticket, Harris was best known as a Golden State prosecutor. As California’s attorney general, Harris won multiple settlements against corporate polluters, including a $44 million settlement from the owners of a container ship that spilled 53,000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay. She secured multimillion-dollar deals with oil companies BP, ARCO and ConocoPhillips for negligent monitoring of hazardous materials in gas station storage tanks, and she was part of the team that held Volkswagen accountable for bypassing air pollution regulations, eventually earning more than $86 billion in penalties for the state. However, her claim that she pursued polluters while working in the San Francisco DA office has come under scrutiny.

In the Senate, she co-sponsored bills to develop national wildlife corridors, divert revenue from energy development to national parks and further climate equity by calculating policy impacts on frontline communities. She voted to protect the Antiquities Act and the Great American Outdoors Act, as well as to halt drilling in the Arctic and pass a public-lands package that conserved 2 million acres of land and water. Over the course of four years, she earned multiple perfect scores from the League of Conservation Voters.

Harris’ track record with Indigenous affairs over her decades working in politics is more varied. As state attorney general, she created the first Indian Child Welfare Act Compliance Task Force to protect Native children. But she also opposed multiple tribal applications to put land into “trust” and thereby grow a tribe’s land base. During her time as attorney general, Harris’ office also pursued a legal argument that could have had negative, precedent-setting impacts for tribes that have acquired land in trust. She argued that the Big Lagoon Rancheria, a tribe that was seeking to build a casino on 11 acres of trust land, improperly received that land from the federal government. The case had the potential to open past land-to-trust transfers across Indian Country to litigation, but the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ultimately ruled against California.

Trump’s impact on Indian Country over four years

Since then, Harris has distanced herself from that position. When then-Cheyenne River Sioux Tribal Chairman Harold Frazier asked her about this publicly in 2019, Harris said that as California’s attorney general it was her duty to represent the state’s interests, which did not necessarily reflect her own. “As California’s attorney general she was perceived as being more focused on states than tribes,” wrote Mark Trahant (Shoshone-Bannock) in an analysis for ICT. “But that has largely shifted.”

During her 2020 campaign for president, for example, Harris promised to assist tribes in restoring their lands and to make it easier for them to do so in the future. Her campaign also detailed specific policies and initiatives to advance Native voting rights, increase funding for the federal agencies serving tribal communities, and protect Native women and children, building on some of the legislation that she co-sponsored during her time in the Senate. Those bills largely focused on supporting Native health care and addressing the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples, along with the Native Voting Rights Act of 2019 and other legislation concerning tribal wildlife corridors and food sovereignty. 

As vice president, she’s been a part of an administration that has made considerable strides in integrating Indigenous knowledge and tribal priorities into public-lands management, as well as in providing funding for Native-led climate resilience projects and appointing multiple Indigenous people to leadership positions. She was the first sitting vice president to visit the Gila Indian River Community and do an interview with the Native news organization ICT. Asked by reporter Aliyah Chavez (Kewa Pueblo) about the administration’s goals and the decision to appoint Native leaders like Interior Secretary Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo), Harris said, “I do believe that we are setting a new model for what the interaction and what the partnership should be [with tribes], always grounded in full appreciation and respect for tribal sovereignty.” 

The Democratic Party has less than a month to introduce any alternative candidates before the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19. Other potential frontrunners, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, appear to be rallying behind Harris as the primary candidate who could win the race against former President Donald Trump. 

The post What a Kamala Harris presidency could mean for the West appeared first on High Country News.

This story was produced by Grist and co-published with Modern Farmer.

I.

Standing knee-deep in an emerald expanse, a row of trees offering respite from the sweltering heat, Rosa Morales diligently relocates chipilín, a Central American legume, from one bed of soil to another. The 34-year-old has been coming to the Campesinos’ Garden run by the Farmworker Association of Florida in Apopka for the last six months, taking home a bit of produce each time she visits. The small plot that hugs a soccer field and community center is an increasingly vital source of food to feed her family. 

It also makes her think of Guatemala, where she grew up surrounded by plants. “It reminds me of working the earth there,” Morales said in Spanish. 

Tending to the peaceful community garden is a far cry from the harvesting Morales does for her livelihood. Ever since moving to the United States 16 years ago, Morales has been a farmworker at local nurseries and farms. She takes seasonal jobs that allow her the flexibility and income to care for her five children, who range from 18 months to 15 years old. 

This year, she picked blueberries until the season ended in May, earning $1 for every pound she gathered. On a good day, she earned about two-thirds of the state’s minimum hourly wage of $12. For that, Morales toiled in brutal heat, with little in the way of protection from the sun, pesticides, or herbicides. With scant water available, the risk of dehydration or heat stroke was never far from her mind. But these are the sorts of things she must endure to ensure her family is fed. “I don’t really have many options,” she said. 

Now, she’s grappling with rising food prices, a burden that isn’t relieved by state or federal safety nets. Her husband works as a roofer, but as climate change diminishes crop yields and intensifies extreme weather, there’s been less work for the two of them. They have struggled to cover the rent, let alone the family’s ballooning grocery bill. 

“It’s hard,” she said. “It’s really, really hot … the heat is increasing, but the salaries aren’t.” The Campesinos’ Garden helps fill in the gap between her wages and the cost of food.

Her story highlights a hidden but mounting crisis: The very people who ensure the rest of the country has food to eat are going hungry. Although no one can say for sure how many farmworkers are food insecure (local studies suggest it ranges from 52 to 82 percent), advocates are sure the number is climbing, driven in no small part by climate change. 

The 2.4 million or so farmworkers who are the backbone of America’s agricultural industry earn among the lowest wages in the country. The average American household spends more than $1,000 a month on groceries, an almost unimaginable sum for families bringing home as little as $20,000 a year, especially when food prices have jumped more than 25 percent since 2019.  Grappling with these escalating costs is not a challenge limited to farmworkers, of course — the Department of Agriculture says getting enough to eat is a financial struggle for more than 44 million people. But farmworkers are particularly vulnerable because they are largely invisible in the American political system.

“When we talk about supply chains and food prices going up, we are not thinking about the people who are producing that food, or getting it off the fields and onto our plates,” said Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli. 

Xiuhtecutli works with the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition to protect farmworkers from the occupational risks and exploitation they face. Few people beyond the workers themselves recognize that hunger is a problem for the community, he said — or that it’s exacerbated by climate change. The diminished yields that can follow periods of extreme heat and the disruptions caused by floods, hurricanes, and the like inevitably lead to less work, further exacerbating the crisis.

There isn’t a lot of aid available, either. Enrolling in federal assistance programs is out of the  question for the roughly 40% of farmworkers without work authorization or for those who fear reprisals or sanctions. Even those who are entitled to such help may be reluctant to seek it. In lieu of these resources, a rising number of advocacy organizations are filling the gaps left by government programs by way of food pantries, collaborative food systems, and community gardens across America.

“Even though (farmworkers) are doing this job with food, they still have little access to it,” said Xiuhtecutli. “And now they have to choose between paying rent, paying gas to and from work, and utilities, or any of those things. And food? It’s not at the top of that list.”

II.

Historically, hunger rates among farmworkers, as with other low-income communities, have been at their worst during the winter due to the inherent seasonality of a job that revolves around growing seasons. But climate change and inflation have made food insecurity a growing, year-round problem. 

In September, torrential rain caused heavy flooding across western Massachusetts. The inundation decimated farmland already ravaged by a series of storms. “It impacted people’s ability to make money and then be able to support their families,” Claudia Rosales said in Spanish. “People do not have access to basic food.” 

As executive director of the Pioneer Valley Workers Center, Rosales fights to expand protections for farmworkers, a community she knows intimately. After immigrating from El Salvador, she spent six years working in vegetable farms, flower nurseries, and tobacco fields across Connecticut and Massachusetts, and knows what it’s like to experience food insecurity. She also understands how other exploitative conditions, such as a lack of protective gear or accessible bathrooms, can add to the stress of simply trying to feed a family. Rosales remembers how, when her kids got sick, she was afraid she’d get fired if she took them to the doctor instead of going to work. (Employers harassed her and threatened to deport her if she tried to do anything about it, she said.) The need to put food on the table left her feeling like she had no choice but to tolerate the abuse.   

“I know what it’s like, how much my people suffer,” said Rosales. “We’re not recognized as essential … but without us, there would not be food on the tables across this country.” 

The floodwaters have long since receded and many farms are once again producing crops, but labor advocates like Rosales say the region’s farmworkers still have not recovered. Federal and state disaster assistance helps those with damaged homes, businesses, or personal property, but does not typically support workers. Under federal law, if agricultural workers with a temporary visa lose their job when a flood or storm wipes out a harvest, they are owed up to 75 percent of the wages they were entitled to before the disaster, alongside other expenses. They aren’t always paid, however. “Last year, there were emergency funds because of the flooding here in Massachusetts that never actually made it to the pockets of workers,” Rosales said. 

The heat wave that recently scorched parts of Massachusetts likely reduced worker productivity and is poised to trigger more crop loss, further limiting workers’ ability to make ends meet. “Climate-related events impact people economically, and so that then means limited access to food and being able to afford basic needs,” said Rosales, forcing workers to make difficult decisions on what they spend their money on — and what they don’t.  

The impossible choice between buying food or paying other bills is something that social scientists have been studying for years. Research has shown, for example, that low-income families often buy less food during cold weather to keep the heat on. But climate change has given rise to a new area to examine: how extreme heat can trigger caloric and nutritional deficits. A 2023 study of 150 countries revealed that unusually hot weather can, within days, create higher risks of food insecurity by limiting the ability to earn enough money to pay for groceries. 

It’s a trend Parker Gilkesson Davis, a senior policy analyst studying economic inequities at the nonprofit Center for Law and Social Policy, is seeing escalate nationwide, particularly as utility bills surge. “Families are definitely having to grapple with ‘What am I going to pay for?’” she said. “People, at the end of the month, are not eating as much, having makeshift meals, and not what we consider a full meal.” 

Federal programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, are designed to help at times like these. More than 41 million people nationwide rely on the monthly grocery stipends, which are based on income, family size, and some expenses. But one national survey of nearly 3,700 farmworkers found just 12.2 percent used SNAP. Many farmworkers and migrant workers do not qualify because of their immigration status, and those who do often hesitate to use the program out of fear that enrolling could jeopardize their status. Even workers with temporary legal status like a working visa, or those considered a “qualified immigrant,” typically must wait five years before they can begin receiving SNAP benefits. Just six states provide nutrition assistance to populations, like undocumented farmworkers, ineligible for the federal program.

The expiration of COVID-era benefit programs, surging food costs, and international conflicts last year forced millions more Americans into a state of food insecurity, but no one can say just how many are farmworkers. That’s because such data is almost nonexistent — even though the Agriculture Department tracks annual national statistics on the issue. Lisa Ramirez, the director of the USDA’s Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement, acknowledged that the lack of data on hunger rates for farmworkers should be addressed on a federal level and said there is a “desire” to do something about it internally. But she didn’t clarify what specifically is being done. “We know that food insecurity is a problem,” said Ramirez, who is a former farmworker herself. “I wouldn’t be able to point to statistics directly, because I don’t have [that] data.” 

Without that insight, little progress can be made to address the crisis, leaving the bulk of the problem to be tackled by labor and hunger relief organizations nationwide.

“My guess is it would be the lack of interest or will — sort of like a willful ignorance — to better understand and protect these populations,” said social scientist Miranda Carver Martin, who studies food justice and farmworkers at the University of Florida. “Part of it is just a lack of awareness on the part of the general public about the conditions that farmworkers are actually working in. And that correlates to a lack of existing interest or resources available to build an evidence base that reflects those concerns.” 

The lack of empirical information prevented Martin and her colleagues Amr Abd-Elrahman and Paul Monaghan from creating a tool that would identify the vulnerabilities local farmworkers experience before and after a disaster. “What we’ve found is that the tool that we dreamed of, that would sort of comprehensively provide all this data and mapping, is not feasible right now, given the dearth of data,” she noted.

However, Martin and her colleagues did find, in a forthcoming report she shared with Grist, that language barriers often keep farmworkers from getting aid after an extreme weather event. Examining the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia, they found cases of farmworkers in Florida trying, and failing, to get food at emergency stations because so many workers spoke Spanish and instructions were written only in English. She suspects the same impediments may hinder post-disaster hunger relief efforts nationwide.

Martin also believes there is too little focus on the issue, in part because some politicians demonize immigrants and the agriculture industry depends upon cheap labor. It is easier “to pretend that these populations don’t exist,” she said. “These inequities need to be addressed at the federal level. Farmworkers are human beings and our society is treating them like they’re not.” 

III.

Tackling hunger has emerged as one of the biggest priorities for the Pioneer Valley Workers Center that Claudia Rosales leads. Her team feeds farmworker families in Massachusetts through La Despensa del Pueblo, a food pantry that distributes food to roughly 780 people each month.  

The nonprofit launched the pantry in the winter of 2017. When the pandemic struck, it rapidly evolved from a makeshift food bank into a larger operation. But the program ran out of money last month when a key state grant expired, sharply curtailing the amount of food it can distribute. The growing need to feed people also has limited the organization’s ability to focus on its primary goal of community organizing. Rosales wants to see the food bank give way to a more entrepreneurial model that offers farmworkers greater autonomy. 

“For the long term, I’d like to create our own network of cooperatives owned by immigrants, where people can go and grow and harvest their own food and products and really have access to producing their own food and then selling their food to folks within the network,” she said. 

Mónica Ramírez, founder of the national advocacy organization Justice for Migrant Women, is developing something very much like that in Ohio. Ramírez herself hails from a farmworker family. “Both of my parents started working in the fields as children,” she said. “My dad was eight, my mom was five.” Growing up in rural Ohio, Ramírez remembers visiting the one-room shack her father lived in while picking cotton in Mississippi, and spending time with her grandparents who would “pile on a truck” each year and drive from Texas to Ohio to harvest tomatoes and cucumbers all summer. 

The challenges the Ramírez family faced then persist for others today. Food security has grown so tenuous for farmworkers in Fremont, Ohio, where Justice for Migrant Women is based, that the organization has gone beyond collaborating with organizations like Feeding America to design its own hyperlocal food system. These hunger relief efforts are focused on women in the community, who Ramírez says usually face the biggest burdens when a household does not have enough money for food.

Migrant women, she said, “bear the stress of economic insecurity and food insecurity, because they are the ones who are organizing their families and making sure their families have food in the house.” 

Later this month, Ramírez and her team will launch a pilot program out of their office that mimics a farmers market — one in which farmworkers and migrant workers will be encouraged to pick up food provided by a local farmer, at no charge. That allows those visiting the food bank to feel empowered by choice instead of being handed a box with preselected goods, and they hope it will alleviate hunger in a way that preserves a sense of agency for families in need.

Although federal lawmakers have begun at least considering protecting workers from heat exposure and regulators are making progress on a national heat standard, so far there’s been no targeted legislative or regulatory effort to address food insecurity among farmworkers. 

In fact, legislators may be on the verge of making things worse.

In May, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives Agriculture Committee passed a draft farm bill that would gut SNAP and do little to promote food security. It also would bar state and local governments from adopting farmworker protection standards regulating agricultural production and pesticide use, echoing legislation Florida recently passed. The inclusion of such a provision is “disappointing,” said DeShawn Blanding, a senior Washington representative at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit advocacy organization. He hopes to see the version that eventually emerges from the Democrat-controlled Senate, where it remains stalled, incorporate several other proposed bills aimed at protecting farmworkers and providing a measure of food security.

Those include the Voice for Farm Workers Act, which would shore up funding for several established farmworker support initiatives and expand resources for the Agriculture Department’s farmworker coordinator. This position was created to pinpoint challenges faced by farmworkers and connect them with federal resources, but it has not been “adequately funded and sustained,” according to a 2023 USDA Equity Commission report. Another bill would create an office within the Agriculture Department to act as a liaison to farm and food workers.

These bills, introduced by Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California, would give lawmakers and policymakers greater visibility into the needs and experiences of farmworkers. But the greatest benefit could come from a third proposal Padilla reintroduced, the Fairness for Farm Workers Act. It would reform the 1938 law that governs the minimum wage and overtime policies for farmworkers while exempting them from labor protections.

“As food prices increase, low-income workers are facing greater rates of food insecurity,” Padilla told Grist. “But roughly half of our nation’s farmworkers are undocumented and unable to access these benefits.” He’d like to see an expedited pathway to citizenship for the over 5 million essential workers, including farmworkers, who lack access to permanent legal status and social safety benefits. “More can be done to address rising food insecurity rates for farmworkers.”

Still, none of these bills squarely addresses farmworker hunger. Without a concerted approach, these efforts, though important, kind of miss the point, Mónica Ramírez said. 

“I just don’t think there’s been a fine point on this issue with food and farmworkers,” she said. “To me it’s kind of ironic. You would think that would be a starting point. What will it take to make sure that the people who are feeding us, who literally sustain us, are not themselves starving?” 

IV.

For 68-year-old Jesús Morales, the Campesinos’ Garden in Apopka is a second home. Drawing on his background studying alternative medicine in Jalisco, Mexico, he’s been helping tend the land for the last three years. He particularly likes growing and harvesting moringa, which is used in Mexico to treat a range of ailments. Regular visitors know him as the “plant doctor.” 

“Look around. This is the gift of God,” Morales said in Spanish. “This is a meadow of hospitals, a meadow of medicines. Everything that God has given us for our health and well-being and for our happiness is here, and that’s the most important thing that we have here.”

He came across the headquarters of the state farmworker organization when it hosted free English classes, then learned about its garden. Although it started a decade ago, its purpose has expanded over the years to become a source of food security and sovereignty for local farmworkers. 

The half-acre garden teems with a staggering assortment of produce. Tomatoes, lemons, jalapeños. Nearby trees offer dragonfruit and limes, and there’s even a smattering of papaya plants. The air is thick with the smell of freshly dug soil and hints of herbs like mint and rosemary. Two compost piles sit side by side, and a greenhouse bursts with still more produce. Anyone who visits during bi-monthly public gardening days is encouraged to plant their own seeds and take home anything they care to harvest. 

“The people who come to our community garden, they take buckets with them when they can,” said Ernesto Ruiz, a research coordinator at the Farmworker Association of Florida who oversees the garden. “These are families with six kids, and they work poverty wages. … They love working the land and they love being out there, but food is a huge incentive for them, too.” 

Throughout the week, the nonprofit distributes what Ruiz harvests. The produce it so readily shares is supplemented by regular donations from local supermarkets, which Ruiz often distributes himself.  

But some of the same factors driving farmworkers to hunger have begun to encroach on the garden. Blistering summer heat and earlier, warmer springs have wiped out crops, including several plots of tomatoes, peppers, and cantaloupes. “A lot of plants are dying because it’s so hot, and we’re not getting rains,” said Ruiz. The garden could also use new equipment — the irrigation system is manual while the weed whacker is third-rate, often swapped out for a machete — and funding to hire another person to help Ruiz increase the amount of food grown and expand when the garden is open to the public.

Demand is rising, and with it, pressure to deliver. Federal legislation addressing the low wages that lead to hunger for many farmworkers across the country is a big part of the solution, but so are community-based initiatives like the Campesinos’ Garden, according to Ruiz. “You do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “It’s always the right thing to feed somebody. Always.”

The post The people who feed America are going hungry appeared first on Investigate Midwest.

More than 200 Texas Democrats will vote to select a new nominee for president at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

WESTON — When a Wellesley College senior named Barbara Solms arrived at this town’s namesake theater to act in summer stock 70 years ago, locals quickly fell smitten.

“Barbara, an attractive blonde,” the Rutland Herald wrote in July 1954, “played with poise, spontaneity and charm.”

“Charming and sincere” the Springfield Reporter seconded.

“Very lovely and tender,” Windsor’s Vermont Journal confirmed.

A month later, the 20-year-old up-and-comer starred alongside Sam Lloyd, a “versatile leading man” portraying an “unusual killer with some humor as well as blood curdling suspense,” according to the Herald.

The surprises weren’t confined to the script. The actress didn’t know she’d go on to marry her scene partner, move into a house across the road and act together in more than 30 years of Weston productions — occasionally alongside her husband’s brother Christopher Lloyd (of the “Back to the Future” movie trilogy) and son Sam Lloyd Jr. (of such television comedies as “Scrubs”).

“We used to take turns at intermission coming home to walk the dog,” she recently recalled. “It was magic, just magic.”

Then it all seemingly disappeared. Tropical Storm Irene flooded the Weston Playhouse in 2011. Sam Lloyd Sr. died of heart failure in 2017. More record rainfall swamped the theater again in 2023, sending the state’s oldest professional troupe to its second stage at the nearby Walker Farm.

Turning 90 this year, Barbara Lloyd has reason to introduce herself with dramatic flourish.

“When you are as old as I, my dear, and I hope that you never are,” she’ll say, “you will woefully wonder why, my dear, through your cataracts and catarrh.”

Then again, those are the opening lyrics of Lloyd’s showstopper in the Weston Theater Company revival of the Broadway musical “Pippin” — a five-minute, first-act star turn that comes on the 70th anniversary of her local debut.

Lloyd first performed the song “No Time at All” in Weston’s original production in 1987, belting out a seize-the-day number in which her elderly character urges those listening to stop fretting about the future and instead to “start living.”

“Time is fleeting, kid,” she summed up the show tune in a recent interview. “Use it right.”

But Lloyd wasn’t sure if anyone would remember — let alone want her to repeat — her past “Pippin” performance when the theater company began casting its latest version.

“Forget it,” she remembered thinking. “Nobody would take a chance on somebody my age.”

Enter Susanna Gellert, Weston’s executive artistic director, who surprised Lloyd by offering her the role of the title character’s grandmother as a birthday present this Feb. 5.

“I knew immediately that I wanted to cast Barbara,” Gellert said this month. “Few can compare when it comes to bringing heartfelt love, sincerity and a true sense of joy and light to the stage.”

‘Here is a secret I never have told’

Ask Lloyd about her life story and she rewinds back to Monticello, New York — “capital of the Borscht Belt,” she said of the Catskill resort region seen in the film “Dirty Dancing.” There, she got her start as a first grader in a classroom production of “A Christmas Carol” and was starring as “Snow White” by the time she graduated elementary school.

Lloyd was in college when a friend suggested she try out for Weston in 1954.

“It was 10 weeks and we did 10 shows,” she recalled of rehearsing one play during the day and performing another at night. “Then I went off and had another life, got married and had children.”

Returning to the playhouse 20 years later, the once “petite blonde newcomer” (per the Bellows Falls Times) reunited with that “versatile leading man,” who by then was also a Vermont House representative, Town Meeting moderator, head of municipal planning and zoning, volunteer firefighter and owner of the since-closed Weston Bowl Mill.

Marrying in 1981, Barbara and Sam Lloyd went on to perform in a host of Weston shows as varied as Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite” and A.R. Gurney’s “Love Letters” — the latter which she considers their “signature piece.”

“Every time we do it,” she said during a 2010 tour of the show, “we bring a little more age and a little more looking back.”

A year after her husband died, Lloyd acted in her last show, a 2018 production of “Our Town.” Capping a Weston career with nearly 50 credits, she retired to volunteer positions as a member of the Farrar Park Association (known locally as the “Ladies of the Green”) as well as municipal vendor ordinance administrator (“if you want to come here with a hotdog truck, I will tell you right now, don’t even try”).

Lloyd’s comeback has required a few accommodations. The show’s lyrics call for her to sing, “I’ve known the fears of 66 years / I’ve had troubles and tears by the score / But the only thing I’d trade them for / Is 67 more.”

Weston musicians thought about substituting Lloyd’s real age, only to realize the truth would clunk up the syllable count. That’s why, in the interest of art, the 90-year-old will proclaim she’s a more melodic 86.

Lloyd’s return to long workdays (she’s scheduled for 31 performances between July 24 and Aug. 17) has kept her away from a flood of recent state, national and world headlines.

“With all that’s going on,” she asked a reporter, “why do you want to talk with me?” 

Because of all that’s going on, he replied.

With that, the great-grandmother of two returned to rehearsing her song.

… Here is a secret I never have told

Maybe you’ll understand why

I believe if I refuse to grow old

I can stay young till I die …

“I’m in training,” Lloyd concluded of preparations for her coming run. “I’ve even given up dairy and martinis, but it’s up to you whether to put that in.”

Read the story on VTDigger here: Amid a flood of bad news, a 90-year-old Vermonter finds reason to sing.