Cullen tells story of contemporary rural Iowa

All Iowans should read Art Cullen’s book, “Dear Marty, We Crapped in Our Nest.”

He tells a story of Iowa with rigor and wit as a native son who cares deeply about our state and its people. Tales of his early years are familiar to me; I am six years his junior and grew up in an adjacent county during the 1960s and 70s.

He speaks of families who thrived operating 160-acre farms and union packing plant jobs that provided a solid middle-class life and secure retirement. That is the Iowa of my youth and those were my neighbors and friends.

He writes about Iowa and corn … from the beginning.

And he tells the story of contemporary rural Iowa. It’s not pretty, and it doesn’t bode well for future generations, absent dramatic change.

To me, the quintessential farmer is that family on 160 acres. But today when someone presents themselves as a farmer, it tells me virtually nothing. They might be an industrial scale polluter poisoning our water and washing our topsoil downstream. They might be a $265 billion investment conglomerate cloaked in church garb. They might be a glorified hired hand, beholden to corporate overlords.

Or they might be innovative, imaginative stewards of the land applying known methods to nourish and improve the soil for generations to come. These are a minuscule subset, but they are out there. Art Cullen has written about them.

Sadly, it seems few, if any, are the farmers of my youth.

Marty Stutz

Des Moines