Organizing strategies for
new immigrants in Iowa
and the midwest
Jan L. Flora
Extension Community
Sociologist
Iowa State University
Race/Hispanic Origin: Iowa
Change 2000-2006
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
-5
Change in
Thousands
iv
at
an
ic
fr
o
in
te
at
hi
/L
W
c
s
ni
ce
pa
ra
is
e
H
or
m
or
2
an
an eric
si
m
A
A
an
e
ic
er
m
N
A
A
Contribution of Immigrants to
Iowa’s Population, 2000-2006



Analysis of U.S. Department of Labor statistics
points to a deficit of available workers of at least
178,000 in Iowa by 2014.
From 2000 to 2006, 41,500 more people left
Iowa for other parts of the United States than
arrived from other states. Had it not been for a
net positive balance of 36,000 people arriving
from other countries during those six years, Iowa
would have had a serious shortage of workers.
The worker shortage will only grow as more
boomers reach retirement and fewer young
people enter the work force.
Immigrants fuel population growth


Seven non-metro Iowa counties avoided population loss
from 1990 to 2000 due to Hispanic growth (New Patterns
of Hispanic Settlement in Rural America/RDRR-99,
Economic Research Service/USDA, May 2004).
New Iowans and their children fill empty storefronts with
their businesses, purchase or rent homes, make our
rural downtowns prosperous once again, and sometimes
help avoid closure of rural and central-city schools due
to lack of students.
% Minority Enrollment 1990
Iowa
5.5 %
0 - 4.9 %
5.0 - 9.9 %
10.0 - 14.9 %
15.0 % +
% Minority Enrollment 2000
Iowa
9.4 %
0 - 4.9 %
5.0 - 9.9 %
10.0 - 14.9 %
15.0 % +
Immigrants pay taxes.


Undocumented immigrant families pay
substantial amounts of state and local taxes –
between $40 and $62 million each year.
Employers in Iowa contribute an additional $1.8
million to $2.8 million in state unemployment
insurance premiums on behalf of their
undocumented employees and contribute
annually an estimated $50 million to $77.8
million in federal Social Security and Medicare
taxes from which those undocumented workers
will never benefit.

Iowa Policy Project, October 2007.
Immigrants can help make the
social security system solvent




Immigrant families are younger than the Iowa (and
the nation’s) population as a whole.
If we make immigrants unwelcome, once Boomers
have retired there will be few persons in the
workforce to pay into the Social Security fund.
Comprehensive immigration reform at the Federal
level is essential, but in the meantime, making
immigrants (authorized and unauthorized alike) more
insecure leads us away from, not toward, a solution.
The cynical view—keep them illegal, so they will pay
into social security without ever benefiting from it.
Majority* Population Pyramid
2000 Iowa
Females
85+
75-79
65-69
55-59
45-49
35-39
25-29
15-19
5-9
6% 5
Males
4
3
2
*White race only, Not Hispanic
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6%
Hispanic* Population Pyramid
2000 Iowa
Females
85+
75-79
65-69
55-59
45-49
35-39
25-29
15-19
5-9
6% 5
*Of any race
Males
4
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
4
5
6%
IOWA’S NEW FARMERS
A study of farming roots and
aspirations among immigrants from
Latin America
Hannah Lewis, North Central Regional
Center for Rural Development
Iowa State University
hlewis@iastate.edu
Research Method: Surveys

We explored experience and interest in farming
among Latino immigrants with farming
experience

Spring 2006


50 respondents in Marshalltown
Spring 2007

61 respondents in Denison
Survey results:
percent
Agricultural aspirations
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Latino
want to farm
want to garden already garden
percent
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
enough
time
access to
land
tech skills
getting
insurance
finding
mkts
access to
capital
Survey results:
Largest Perceived Obstacles
Latino
Key findings: interviews of Mexican
farmers in Iowa (Hannah Lewis)
o
o
o
o
Respondents are:
farming on small
acreage (10-20
acres), and raising
vegetables, fruits
and livestock for
sale and home
consumption
Combining various
o Pluriactive farming (combining
resources to
part-time farming with off-farm
purchase land
work) helps households achieve
Marketing specialty economic and quality-of-life goals
products to other
• Livestock are central to their
Latino immigrants
enjoyment of farming (cultural
Utilizing skills and
capital)
knowledge gained in
State's dairy
farmers turn to
Hispanic
workers

To learn more about their employees as people, the
Youngs [Maurie and Rita, Plainview, MN dairy farmers]
also signed up for a trip to Mexico. . . There they met
the families of some Minnesota farm workers, in poor
villages. The experience was humbling, the Youngs said.
The Youngs say their transition to foreign workers has
been smooth, partly because they had participated in a
foreign-exchange program earlier and because they
found a terrific bilingual chief herdsman.
Minneapolis Star Tribune, Sept. 03, 2007
State's dairy farmers turn to Hispanic workers
(Minneapolis Star Tribune, Sept. 03, 2007)

Likewise, that herdsman,
a soft-spoken young man
named Javier Martinez,
can't say enough about
his new work. "I grew up
with animals, and I love
working with cows," said
Martinez, who does
everything from caring for
newborns to assisting the
veterinarian to overseeing
the labor on the farm.
"And I love small towns.
Here, we can wake up
and see the sun.
State's dairy farmers turn to Hispanic workers
(Minneapolis Star Tribune, Sept. 03, 2007)

In the farm-dotted countryside of southeastern Minnesota
where the Youngs live, the seeds for hiring Hispanic
workers were planted by John Rosenow, a Wisconsin
farmer about 30 miles east of Wabasha.
Rosenow said he and his wife had been working on their
farm about 90 hours a week for 10 years, when they
decided they couldn't stay on the treadmill. He somewhat
reluctantly checked into hiring Mexican workers in the mid1990s.
"It's not natural for [farmers] to hire someone from another
country, another culture, another language," he recalled.
"There's been nothing but Swiss and German people here
for 150 years.... But then you realize it's the best thing you
can do."
State's dairy farmers turn to Hispanic workers
(Minneapolis Star Tribune, Sept. 03, 2007)


Rosenow's workers were so reliable that other farmers took notice, he said.
The otherwise low-key Wisconsin farmer found himself becoming an
unpaid employment agent, helping about 100 farmers find Hispanic labor
over the past decade. He relied on the contacts of his top Mexican
employees.
"I'd get calls from farmers in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and
Iowa, saying they couldn't find workers," Rosenow recalled. "I'd explain [to
his worker] what we needed, and typically he could find someone by the
next day. The networking was incredible."
Rosenow and [Shaun] Judge Duvall
were vital in creating Puentes/Bridges,
an organization designed to smooth over
cultural misunderstandings between the
newest farm workers and the longtimers. The organization, based in Alma,
[WI] is bringing another batch of farmers
to Mexico in November and helping
sponsor a community forum in nearby
Arcadia, Wis., this month.
Hannah Lewis—Dairy workers in
Iowa



New dairy workers invariably start in the milking parlor
and are trained on the job by experienced workers. If
they show promising skills, they can begin to take on
more responsibility and some may climb an internal job
ladder. Job titles include head herdsman, head of
maintenance, feed manager, etc., depending on farm
size. There may also be assistant positions.
Farmers who hire Hispanic workers have a bilingual
employee in a lead/supervisory role. Bilingual staff is
also responsible (on the larger farms) for filtering and
hiring and training new applicants.
3.) Recruitment takes place mainly by word-of-mouth
among employee networks. These workers come with all
documentation, but farmers do not necessarily know
whether it is legal documentation or not.
Hannah Lewis—Dairy workers in
Iowa



These six farmers say that looking to the local Anglo
population for a labor supply is a dead-end path; they
are completely dependent on immigrant labor. They
would like to see immigration policy that allows
immigrants to live and work in the U.S. legally.
Training: Several farmers conduct periodic
trainings/refreshers for established workers to reinforce
the key point that the quality of the work in a dairy farm
has a direct effect on the quality of the milk.
These trainings are generally in the form of a bimonthly
luncheon. Sometimes guest presenters are brought in,
such as Alvaro Garcia from U of SD or bilingual
presenters from Monsanto or Phizer. Farmers don't rely
on written protocols since all information and knowledge
is passed on through showing, doing and explaining.
Lewis--Dairy farmers mentioned following
labor concerns that Extension might address:








Explain farm labor law requirements (workman’s compensation,
etc.);
Help organize chore relief for smaller farmers to attend Extension
seminars;
Help recruit summer interns onto farms (to cover employee vacation
time);
Prepare dairy students to become future dairy managers with more
practical skills and on-farm internships opportunities.
Conduct farm safety training;
Provide language assistance on smaller farms with no bilingual
employees;
Educate general public to dispel negative myths about immigrants to
build support for immigration policy that allows a stable reliable ag
workforce.
Explain details of guest worker programs, parameters and how to
enroll; (Note: several farmers stated that it is not much help on a
dairy farm to hire seasonal workers. Not only is dairy year-round
work, but several dairy jobs are high-skilled and learned over time.)
The “DAIRY AIR” Program
Breathing New Life into the NE Iowa Dairy Industry

Sharemilking is a contractual
arrangement between a landlord/employer
and a tenant/ employee that combines the
management, labor, cattle and/or
machinery in a multi-party dairy enterprise
without a more formal arrangement such
as an LLC, partnership or corporation. The
overall goal is to build career bridges for
beginning, mid-career and retiring farmers.
The “DAIRY AIR” Program
Stage 1: Hired and/or Intern Labor

Prospective sharemilker works side by side with
producers to learn day-to-day dairy management.
Stage 2: Working for a Percentage Wage



After building trust as an employee, the relationship can
build to receiving increased incentives based on milk
price premiums and assuming risk in the ups and downs
of milk prices.
Providing the milking, feeding, manure scraping, calf and
herd health roles for 10%-20% of the milk check is
common.
Phase lasts about a year and is a good “testing” time to
see if parties are compatible for advanced sharemilking.
The “DAIRY AIR” Program
Stage 3: Owning Cattle



Cattle ownership. This is accomplished by outright purchase or
lease of new or existing herd animals by the sharemilker.
Ownership of 10%-20% is often a good first step. The sharemilker is
often compensated for their investment in the herd either by an
increased percentage of the income, assistance in the cost of
raising their heifers, etc.
Contractual arrangements are increasingly important from this stage
onward.
Stage 4: Sharing of Income and Expenses


The sharing of expenses can begin in any of the above stages as it
goes hand- in- hand with the varied ways of sharing income.
An overriding goal of this sharing is “fairness” as an unfair sharing
often invites its own destruction. Thus, it is in the interest of both
parties to do what’s fair, which often may go against the custom of
the community from past sharemilking arrangements.
Building Capacity to Engage Latinos
in Local Food Systems in the Heartland
North Central
SARE
Professional
Development
Program
March 21-22, 2007
NC SARE PDP -- Grant
Recipients Meeting -- Chicago
Activities




2 multicultural trainings on working w/ Latino
families
4 experiential learning visits
Eight one-day trainings in Local Food Systems
Facilitated planning session for professional
leadership
Outcomes

Increased awareness of
Latinos as valued
community members
and current/future
farmer
 Improved skills in engaging Latino audiences w/ culturally
appropriate programs
 Improved understanding and skills in assessing,
analyzing and gaining resources for Local Food Systems
 Improved understanding, skills in marketing and business
development strategies appropriate to LFS
 Ability to integrate knowledge, skills described above to
develop strategy for sustained support programs
Marshalltown
Farmer
Entrepreneurship
and Local Food
System



Marshalltown Community
College Entrepreneurial and
Diversified Agriculture and
farmer incubation program
Growing Food and Profit
El Colectivo & Latinos en Accion
Key elements in place in
Marshall County








Many farmers and resources to grow new farmers
Farmers’ market
Emerging intercultural network of farmers and eaters
(Growing Food and Profit)
Lots of independently owned food businesses;
several with interests in local foods
Marshalltown Chamber “Target 5” campaign to
encourage local sourcing
Local culture of interagency collaboration (example:
Community plan for another possible ICE raid)
Slow Foods movement beginnings
Regional Food Systems Working Group (Leopold
Center) and Prairie Rivers RC&D as support group
Marshalltown Hispanic Small
Businesses


42 Registered, Operating Hispanic Businesses… and counting
55 Total… and counting
Business Types
Number of Businesses
Retail Services* (clothing, others)
16
Auto Repair, Tires, and Towing
10
Restaurants
9
Food Products (“groceries”) and Services*
6
Entertainment, dancehall
4
Construction and Painting
3++
Food Products and Bakery
2
Laundromat
1
Auto Insurance Provider
1
Hair Stylists and Barbers
0
Hotel/Motel
0
Other (bands, healers, auto dealerships, etc.) 3++
Total
55
*e.g. money transfer, translation, tax preparation
** Total is more than 100% due to rounding.
%
29
18
16
11
7
5
4
2
2
0
0
5
99**
Start-up Characteristics
Where do business owners come from (n=18)?
-
-
Mexico, Jalisco
Mexico, MIchoacan
Mexico, Zacatecas
Mexico, Guerrero
Mexico, Puebla
Mexico, Guanajato
Cuba, Havana
6
3
2
1
1
1
1
Total Accumulated Start Up Investments (n=14)
Utilized personal savings and/or family loans
Applied for bank loans for start-up/expansion
Bank rejected loan application
Returned to same bank (or other) and received loan
Previous Experience owning a business
Developed a Business Plan before starting
$1.1M
17
10
6
7
7
0
Sales and Marketing





Total Avg. monthly sales (n=11):
$265K
Total Avg. annual sales (n=11):
$3.1M
Total Average # of clients (n=12):
 Weekday: 335
 Weekend: 783
 Month:
11,802
5 have a business accountant
9 Advertise in English (Print: Penny Saver,
Radio)
Employment

Total employees (n=18):






Full time:
Part time:
65
46
19
Employing family members:
Owner and Operator:
Insures employees (n=16):
Total Annual payroll (n=13)
13
16
0
$716,600
Expected Outcomes
(Systemic Changes)


Successful Latino farmers and local
businesses engaged in local food systems
Sustained institutional engagement in
education and technical services in support
of Latino farm families
Outcomes of ICE raid study




Play on the raids experience in Marshalltown based on in-depth interviews)-Plan for responding to raids for other
communities—newspaper person.
Legalist, pluralist, pragmatist—design a
program for education about immigration.
Regional project