HOGGING THE PROFITS - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 107

Fagan, who was born on a farm in 1940 and attended a one-room school in Dubuque County, was an
associate priest at a Waterloo Catholic Church when he decided to help start ICCI and become a commu-
nity organizer. At its inception, the organization was funded by eight churches, and it still receives some
faith-based funding, as well as foundation money. Nowadays, much of its money comes from its 3,300
members, who not only pay dues but also are active in the group's grassroots campaigns. ICCI has mem-
bers in ninety-eight of Iowa's ninety-nine counties, and a staff of sixteen. 26
Originally, the organization focused on community issues like removing abandoned properties, funding
neighborhood improvements, and preventing utilities from gouging customers. But during the farm crisis
the group started working on agriculture issues, such as renegotiating mortgages for more than two hundred
farms and helping to secure $32 million in loans for small and midsize farms. ICCI's current director, Hugh
Espey, is the high-energy, strategic mastermind behind many of the tactics that have made ICCI so success-
ful, such as building a strong coalition that links farmers, environmental, labor, consumer, and immigrant
and civil rights under a single social justice banner. Under Espey's leadership ICCI has built a statewide
membership that has the power to win some good legislation and stop bad legislation in the Iowa state-
house that agribusiness wants.
Espey grew up in the Mississippi River town of Quincy, Illinois, where his father was a doctor and his
parents were Goldwater Republicans. When he left home and went to college at Drake University in Des
Moines, he was exposed to a bigger world and began questioning the values he had grown up with. After
receiving a BA in sociology and going on to the University of Iowa for an MA in sociology, he saw a
newspaper ad for a community organizer position with ICCI that would help make a difference in Council
Bluffs, a town located along the Missouri River in western Iowa. Espey worked on neighborhood issues
and recruited member activists for ICCI. He went on to work for ICCI in Sioux City and eventually became
ICCI's executive director.
Espey explains that ICCI started working on agriculture issues because the farm crisis of the 1980s was
devastating for the state. Banks simply weren't willing to work with farmers, who were about to lose their
homes and livelihoods. In the early 1990s ICCI began to organize to stop factory farms, but in 1995 they
jumped in full force, with Missouri Rural Crisis Center (MRCC) and other organizations in the Campaign
for Family Farms and the Environment (CFFE), an effort still going strong today.
CFFE has been an important factor in the Midwest in helping local groups succeed in fighting factory
farms; the cooperation between MRCC, ICCI, and the Land Stewardship Program (LSP) is a strong
multistate effort with a progressive and inclusive agenda. The coalition bridged racial and urbanrural di-
vides and was able to include environmental, labor, faith-based, and consumer organizations in the fight
against factory farms.
In Iowa, the strategy was to organize at the local level to build political momentum for better enforce-
ment of state and federal laws. ICCI has an impressive track record in Iowa, including stopping the con-
struction or expansion of over six dozen factory farms. They have helped neighbors of factory farms suc-
cessfully reduce their property taxes when their homes were devalued by odor and pollution. ICCI helped
mount litigation when they created a nuisance that severely affected citizens' quality of life. The organiz-
ation has won numerous battles over local control of factory farms by challenging the permitting process
of Iowa's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and forcing the agency to issue stiff fines and penalties
to factory farm polluters. ICCI's campaign resulted in the agency referring pollution cases to the Iowa at-
torney general for stronger enforcement action. Despite opposition from extremely powerful agribusiness
opponents, ICCI won Iowa's first clean air fight by obtaining a standard for hydrogen sulfide, a chemical
emitted from factory hog farms, in September 2004.
When Republican governor Terry Branstad announced that he wanted to double the output of Iowa's
factory farms by 2050, ICCI went on the offensive. ICCI member and independent livestock farmer Garry