Andy's Angle

My first newspaper column appeared in the local paper today. After years of speaking daily via the radio, writing regularly via this blog, email, and most recently via Twitter, I am officially a pen and paper writer. In a new partnership with Brown Publishing's Logan County River Current, I will be penning a weekly column on agriculture and rural Ohio. I plan on sharing the column here, as well as via my daily email. I hope you enjoy; as always, feel free to comment below.

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Rural Youth Development Is Critical to Ohio's Future

As part of our travels covering the news of agriculture and rural lifestyle, I have occasion to visit dozens of county fairs and youth events across Ohio. Earlier this week I spent midday at the Hardin County Fair, and spoke at length with 4-H Youth Extension Educator Ken LaFontaine. During our interview, I asked Ken how he felt about the prospect of keeping young people in small towns and rural counties like ours. Ken’s response was similar to so many I’ve heard this summer: “It’s getting harder all the time.”

Rural America is what makes this country great. Our way of life, our values, our work ethic, and the fact that our friends and neighbors feed the world are what anchor us to our roots as a nation. Remember that men like Washington and Jefferson were farmers who became statesmen, and in the mold of Washington, often retired back to their farms and estates after they felt their service was through. Middle America, particularly the rural counties of the Corn Belt, is the figurative touchstone of our society.

Yet with the changing of the seasons and the inevitable ups and downs of agricultural life, the young people who will some day be leading our communities are leaving for the proverbial greener pastures. Be it hope of better employment opportunities in large cities, be it a disinterest in the rural lifestyle in general and the farm way of life in particular, or be it just a natural ebb and flow migration that was the hallmark of our ancestors, many leaders in rural towns across the country have a real challenge on their hands in figuring out how to maintain the population base of counties like ours.

And yet, I am hopeful. The concept of fresh air, clean water, and wide open spaces appeals to so many Americans, and in recent years, as any farmer can tell you, the interest in rural property has increased dramatically. The opportunity for many folks to use the technologies offered via the internet to work for businesses in larger cities while sitting in their own living rooms or home-based offices is huge. When my wife and I were first married, we commuted over two hours daily in our roundtrip to a Columbus radio station. Today, we broadcast the day’s agricultural news to over 60 Ohio radio stations and five other states from a home-based studio in De Graff!

To that end, rural municipalities and governments have to continue work to make this type of lifestyle possible for the average citizen. The expansion of rural broadband, the continued strength of and access to medicine and fire and rescue services, and most importantly the presence of a strong education system are absolutely critical to keeping our communities on the map from a competitiveness standpoint.

We also have to be as competitive as possible for small business. Small businesses are the engine driving economic growth in this country. The owners of these types of organizations employ so many Americans that we can’t afford for them to fail. In fact, by encouraging the growth of small businesses, be it via strength of infrastructure or by creating a friendly business climate, we can ensure the continued opportunity for our friends and neighbors to live, work, and prosper in their own communities, thereby returning dollars back to our own local economy.

The most important thing we can do, aside from searching for and creating opportunities to remain economically viable as rural citizens, is encourage rural youth development. In talking to my friend the Extension Educator, I learned that even though very few of the 4-H and FFA members he works with at the Hardin County Fair come from working farms, they have a firm interest in the agricultural lifestyle, if not the business and science of agricultural production. By connecting to these students, we can provide for them not only education in developing their talents and skills, but we can be a real example of the support network that is so much a part of rural towns and villages. Hopefully the mentorship and guidance of community members will not only encourage those students to be successful members of our society, but will give them a connection beyond their families that will entice them to return to their hometowns and areas after an experience at college or trade.

Our state has a strong 4-H program and an extremely successful FFA Association. There are several schools with FFA Chapters in the area, and dozens of 4-H clubs. How are you involved? Have you taken the opportunity to serve as a 4-H advisor? Perhaps you’ve not yet experienced the joy of chaperoning a trip to the National FFA Convention. My Mother, who didn’t have any girls, chaperoned a room of young ladies at the Ohio FFA Convention for several years after I graduated because of the fun and excitement of spending the weekend with bright-eyed teenagers. Trust me, you’ll learn and gain as much from your involvement as will the students.

Getting involved is easy. Call the county extension office and ask how you can get involved as a volunteer. If the time commitment of being a 4-H Advisor is too much all at once, there are numerous other ways to lend a hand. Call your local high school and inquire if there is an FFA Chapter or an Agricultural Educator on hand. We have several outstanding FFA Advisors in this area, and they will jump at the opportunity to have a member of the community involved with their students. Both 4-H and FFA have great websites that offer suggestions and contact information for prospective supporters.

So many of us have said or heard the phrase that the youth of this nation are our future. If we don’t step up to the plate and get involved, we may watch our future drive away… for good.

Editor's Note - I mentioned earlier in the month a surprising change in the platform of the Republican Party outlining a shift in policy regarding biofuels. After many years of staunch support for ethanol and the renewable fuels industry, the party announced a major change in their stance on this valuable resource.

Fred Yoder, a dear friend of mine and Past President of the National Corn Growers Association and Ohio Corn Growers Association, submitted this open letter to the party in response.

This is an open letter to the McCain campaign and the Republican National Committee.

As a farmer who has been a life-long Republican, I have been very involved in our country’s agriculture policy development and implementation for a long while. I have seen many good people work very hard from both sides of the aisle to develop policy for new and alternative fuels to help wean us from our dependence on foreign sources of energy. I am very proud of both the Energy Security Act of 2005, which provides a floor for ethanol use to help build the refining infrastructure in our heartland, and also the Energy Act of 2007, which goes even further, encouraging not only biofuels made from corn, but also those made from other sources such as wood chips, corn stover, and switch grass. It also includes incentives to further develop the wind and solar energy industries.

I was very surprised and upset to learn that the RNC slipped into their Republican Platform at their convention a plank that basically opposes the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the part in both energy bills that mandates the use of alternative liquid fuels. Back during the 2004 Republican convention, there was strong support for building and using alternative fuels to help us be less reliant on foreign oil. What has changed in the last 4 years? The RFS has worked exactly like it was designed to do. Without the current use of 8 billion gallons of ethanol to stretch gasoline supplies, Merrill Lynch has estimated gasoline at the pump would be at least 15% higher, or roughly 40 to 60 cents a gallon.

The more experience we receive in using current models of biofuel refinement, the more we can learn about other possibilities, such as growing algae for biodiesel, and capturing greenhouse gases and turning them into high-value liquid fuels and electricity. The point is any new industry that will benefit so many people needs some help to get started. Why would we pull the plug on such a promising and important industry?

The Obama campaign has been very clear with their positions on alternative liquid fuels. Senator Obama has stated “I am strongly committed to advancing biofuels as a key component of reducing our dependence on foreign oil.” Senator McCain has stated he would end “mandates, subsidies, tariffs and price supports that focus exclusively on corn-based ethanol” and let the free market identify the best alternative fuels. Who is he kidding? What incentives will there be to sink enormous sums of money into research to develop these new fuels if there is no ready market for them? Remember, we currently rely on our oil friends to blend and market our home-grown ethanol because they have to. In essence, by taking away the RFS, there will be a national mandate to use only gasoline. How does that help in reducing our reliance on imported oil?

What I am asking the McCain campaign is please do not take people like me for granted. I may have conservative social values, but don’t expect me to stand by quietly and let the most promising and effective rural development tool that we have seen in years, as well as a significant contributor to reduce our reliance on foreign oil, be disassembled after all of the great bipartisan support and cooperation it took to make it happen in the first place.

Fred Yoder is a farmer from Plain City.