Iowa's farm state image starts to fade

January 19, 2000
Web posted at: 6:21 p.m. EST (2321 GMT)

OSCEOLA, Iowa (CNN) -- Presidential candidates still argue over agricultural issues in Iowa ahead of its first-in-the-nation caucuses, but the state's farm image may be more nostalgia than reality.

Just under 40 percent of Iowans live in rural areas now as more of the jobs in agribusiness focus on fields as diverse as genetics and pharmaceuticals. Fewer people are making a living on the farms.

"I think Iowa is really going through a massive change as a rural economy moving urban. The fact is, the family farm tends to be a nostalgic myth, to be honest about it," said Dean Wright, a sociology professor at Drake University in Des Moines. "Companies like Cargill, Iowa Beef Processors, Pioneer Hybrid, corn companies, beef companies, pig companies have basically taken over the family farm and moved it into a large corporate enterprise."

Change also is coming to Des Moines and the state's other cities. Teresa Wahlert, a vice president at U.S. West in Des Moines, works on economic development issues, and the companies she deals with aren't in business of agriculture.

"It's high-tech, it's the financial industry, the insurance industry, even manufacturing out in what we would call the suburbs, but really it's all the greater Des Moines area and central Iowa," she said. "All of these really produce the engine of the economy for central Iowa and for Iowa itself. "

Banking and insurance are a long way from farming. Approximately 250,000 people lived in Des Moines when the first caucuses were held in 1972. The city now has a population of 400,000.

"The state tends to be growing, but it's growing in the urban environs," Wright said. "It's the Des Moines that are growing, it's the Waterloos that are growing."

With high-tech jobs and smaller cities, Iowa has things to offer besides farms.

We still are among the very top of all the states in our educational system. And, of course we believe that is a real value, quality of life issue, that most anybody is interested in," Wahlert said.

Iowa has built it, and they have come. Susan Ramsey of the Greater Des Moines Partnership went away to work for 10 years, but when she came back for a visit, she decided to stay.

"When you have a family, when you start raising children, you want to provide the best for them and you see what schools are like in other areas of the country," she said. "Or you look at the bars in the windows in other urban areas, and you want an urban existence but you also want the childhood you grew up with, and that's what brought me home."

The state is changing its agricultural image but it is also on kind of an economic roll. Take the brand new Lakeside Casino in Osceola, 45 minutes south of Des Moines, which brought 800 jobs with it.

"It's definitely going to have an impact on the region any time you introduce that kind of a payroll into an area like this, people are going to feel the ripple effect of it. You bet," said Joe Massa, the general manager of Lakeside Casino & Resort.

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