Reitsma wrote two notes before shooting himself. One was to his family. The other was a four-word note to the bank’s local branch manager: “Welcome to the kill.”

When asked to picture farm life, many people envision idyllic settings similar to this fall plow scene painted by renowned Iowa artist Grant Wood. While such images are often accurate, they also obscure the real stresses that make up the daily lives of rural residents. (Photo courtesy Deere Art Collection)

Stories like Reitsma’s are becoming more frequent in states like California, Maine and Colorado. Experts say Midwestern states like Iowa are better prepared to deal with rural mental health problems, but the risks are still high.

“To farmers there is a real kinship with the land and livestock,” explained Dr. Mike Rosmann, executive director of AgriWellness. “Ownership of a family farm — sometimes a farm that has been in the family for generations — is the triumphant result of a multitude of struggles. Losing the farm or the livestock is viewed as an ultimate loss, one that brings shame to the generation that has let down its forebearers and has dashed the hopes of successors.”

The psychological attachment farm families feel for their land and livestock is one of the lessons of the 1980s farm crisis — a time when farmer suicides and rural violence made front page news across the nation. Back then, Iowa and Nebraska, two states severely impacted by the farm crisis, developed crisis hotlines designed specifically to serve the needs of agricultural workers. Today, in the wake of natural disasters and in the midst of economic uncertainty, the hotlines are experiencing a spike in activity, likely helping to prevent more tragedies.

The Sowing the Seeds of Hope program provides behavioral health services to uninsured, underinsured and other at-risk farm and ranch families and ag workers in seven states. Despite droughts, floods and ongoing economic challenges to family-sized farm operations, the suicide rate has not increased in states that have these services.

AgriWellness and Iowa State University Extension jointly sponsor the Iowa-based Sowing the Seeds of Hope hotline, which serves rural people in seven Midwestern states. It is the nation’s largest crisis help line for agricultural workers, and the calls are coming more often than they did even a year ago.

Though many of the calls the hotline has received from Iowa have been related to the impact of last year’s floods, Rosmann noted that, “More recently, we have seen an uptick in calls that are related to market prices for swine and dairy.”

“In addition to the 20-percent increase in calls [when comparing the first four months of 2008 with the first four months of 2009], the content of the calls is changing,” Rosmann said. “The callers are reporting much more severe economic turmoil, more mental health symptoms and significant increases in mental stress.”

In times of inclement weather — for instance, severe storms, floods or droughts — the hotlines experience increased activity. The callers in these situations, according to Rosmann, are distraught but do not have the “intensity” of the callers during tough economic times.

“You probably aren’t seeing as many [suicides] in the states, like Iowa, where we have hotlines,” he said. “The hotlines have the effect of reducing the isolation and they create a vehicle people can use to contact someone. We don’t have quite as many suicides in any of the states where we have the hotlines and have other additional support services. [We have heard] that there were two suicides reported out of North Carolina, where there is no hotline. The same is true of California — there is no hotline there — or in Colorado.”

The statistical evidence of suicide reduction creates a good argument, he said, for why Congress should approve funding for the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network that was authorized as part of the 2008 farm bill. The network creates a national crisis hotline for rural workers and also mandates additional behavioral health services in geographically rural regions.

There is insufficient data that examines suicide by occupational group, but several studies have demonostrated that suicide by farmers differs somewhat from suicide patterns by urban residents. The table above illustrates how farmers, if they decide to take their own lives, often align themselves with the cycles of farming. (Source: AgriWellness)

Federal officials, including U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, have signaled their awareness of the ongoing problem, but additional solutions may be hard to come by. “I’ve talked to farmers whose loved ones have committed suicide over this. I do understand,” Vilsack said during a rural community forum this week in Wisconsin.

Despite Vilsack’s recognition of what’s happening in rural communities, he said that he does not see many opportunities for additional federal intervention to turn things around. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which recently approved $760 million in new farm loans, is considering restructuring loans and providing temporarily higher support payments, but ongoing discussions in the halls of Washington, D.C., will provide little comfort for agricultural families who field daily calls from creditors. Even if the idea is implemented, it is unlikely to be enough on its own.

Iowa has not yet seen the brunt of the burgeoning mental health crisis, largely because it remains ahead of the curve on rural mental health issues. The Hawkeye State not only provides an outlet for stress with its hotline, but it also offers follow-up care to agricultural workers who need it. The Iowa hotline has about 37 or 38 providers who have been contracted to give follow-up support to callers, Rosmann said. That means that Iowa residents need only travel 30 to 40 miles to access additional services.

“For many people that sort of distance is actually preferable because some don’t want to see a provider in their own town,” he said. “This usually has nothing to do with quality of care at local mental health centers, but has to do with the perceptions of what others might say if a family is seen going to the local facility or provider. So there is a perception of stigma attached to accessing behavioral health services, but that varies from person-to-person.”

In other states, rural residents tend to have more difficulty accessing mental health care.

“It’s a very complex picture,” Rosmann warned before beginning to explain the problems surrounding behavioral health services in rural America. “We have seen in Iowa the loss of psychiatrists and psychologists in rural areas. There just aren’t enough. But, we are better off than some other states. South Dakota is just terrible, and in Montana there just aren’t any psychologists and psychiatrists in rural areas. Residents there might have to travel 150 or more miles to get a court-ordered neuro-psychological evaluation because of lack of access.

“The numbers of appropriately-trained providers of psychology, psychiatry and substance abuse counseling in rural areas is half that of the same professionals in urban areas — and it is worsening.”

Further complicating the access issue for rural Americans is that there are very few medical educational tracks currently available that train health care professionals about the specific concerns that are often seen in more rural settings. And, outside of the rudimentary knowledge provided within those few agricultural medicine courses, there is no national curriculum in place for behavioral health professionals who intend to service rural areas.

“You simply can’t provide the information these professionals will need during a two-hour lecture,” Rosmann said. “We need a whole textbook and curriculum on agricultural behavioral health, and that is one of the things that we are now undertaking at AgriWellness.”

The organization plans to offer a six-hour course to professionals as a part of its upcoming biennial convention next month in South Dakota. Rosmann said that while recent discussions regarding mental health parity in conjunction with national discussions of health care reform are “a noble goal,” they don’t necessarily translate to actual access in rural areas.

“Having it on the books doesn’t mean that it is going to be adequately implemented,” he said. “I don’t know if it is a goal we are going to be able to achieve easily because parity requires the distribution of professional providers in ways that are quite different then where we are at currently. So, we are going to have to somehow get providers into the rural areas, and we’re going to have to change the reimbursement structure. Both of those are hard to change, but they are proper goals in my opinion.”

“The marketing initiative between Mystique and Diamond Jo — which includes regional billboards, a Web site and a TV advertisement — is designed to promote the area as a whole, not just the casinos,” reports the Dubuque Telegraph Herald.

The Dubuque casinos’ success has been noticed by other competing casinos across the country, the paper reports. Casinos in Connecticut, for instance, have found that they could benefit from banding together against the bigger casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, rather than spending the bulk of their marketing dollars to compete against each other.

Casinos in Tunia, Mississippi, are reportedly trying the same thing.

Though gambling is a surprisingly recession-proof activity, even casinos are not immune to the global economic downturn. From the Telegraph Herald:

Year-to-date, the area gambling market has grown by just over 19 percent in the wake of expansions at both properties. But in gross revenue, [Dubuque Area Racing Board President and CEO Jesus] Aviles said there has been a stall in the growth experienced in recent months and the coin-in market rate is flat.

“This is where we’re seeing effects of the economic downturn,” he said. “People are coming. They’re spending a little less.”

The racetrack casino drew in $5.1 million in revenue in June, down from $5.8 million in May, according to the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission.

Attendance also slipped to 112,000 from 115,500 in May.

I can’t wait to see how this develops. If the trend continues, could we see a statewide television ad that simply says “Please gamble more,” sponsored by all of Iowa’s casinos? Together, they could easily afford it.

Information filed with the court alleges that Juan Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza, 35, conspired with others, and aided and abetted his employer, in hiring more than 10 individuals he knew to be undocumented workers. The documents state that Guerrero-Espinoza told employees he supervised on May 7 — employees that he allegedly knew to be ineligible to work in the U.S. — that they were going to be terminated and immediately rehired by Agriprocessors.

Guerrero-Espinoza, who is currently being held without bail pending a September court date on charges related to encouraging illegal immigration, is now scheduled to appear in federal court in Cedar Rapids tomorrow, Aug. 20.

Guerrero-Espinoza and another supevisor — 43-year-old Martin De La Rosa-Loera — are the only two members of management from the Agriprocessors plant in Postville to face formal criminal charges following a May 12 immigration raid on the kosher meatpacker. During the raid, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained 389 workers, most citizens of Guatemala and Mexico. The vast majority of those workers were charged and convicted of criminal wrongdoing related to identity theft within days of the raid.

The original complaint filed against Guerrero-Espinoza alleges that, a few days before the execution of the search warrant at Agriprocessors, he told a group of employees that they needed new identification and social security numbers in order to continue working at the plant. He then, according to testimony, told the workers that they would need to provide him with a photograph and either $200 or $220.

The complaint against De La Rosa-Loera alleges he told some undocumented workers that they could no longer be employed at Agriprocessors because their identification was bad. He later allegedly told those same employees that they could return to work using the same names that had previously been used for employment.

Both Guerrero-Espinoza and De La Rosa-Loera have pleaded not guilty to the original charges.

Court documents also indicated the raid netted fraudulent permanent alien resident cards from the Agriprocessors human resources offices.

Authorities continue to search for a third supervisor, Hosam Amara. The indictment listing specific charges against Amara remains sealed.

Agriprocessors produces about 60 percent of the kosher meat and 40 percent of the kosher poultry in the U.S. market. The company’s brands include Aaron’s Best, Aaron’s Choice, European Glatt, Nevel, Shor Harbor, Rubashkin’s, Supreme Kosher, David’s and Iowa’s Best. Two-thirds of their products are nonkosher, and are sold through traditional retailers such as Wal-Mart.

Martin De La Rosa-Loera, 43, and Juan Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza, 35, are both are charged with aiding and abetting the possession and use of fraudulent identity documents and encouraging aliens to illegally reside in the U.S.

Although court proceedings were scheduled to begin Thursday morning at 9 a.m. in the temporary court facilities in Cedar Rapids, a transportation snafu delayed the start of the hearings until later that same day.

The men, who are being prosecuted individually, have obtained representation. Guerrero-Espinoza is being represented by Corey Rubenstein of Chicago while De La Rosa-Loera is represented by Thomas McQueen, also of Chicago. Both defense attorneys requested an extension of time to petition the court to revisit a previous detention order that requires the defendants to remain in custody while awaiting trail.

U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Jon Scoles, who cited a weight of evidence against the defendants and previous criminal activity when handing down the original detention order, approved the extension. Chief Judge Linda Reade is anticipated to make a ruling on the motions after they are filed. If the order is upheld, the defendants will remain in custody until their Sept. 15 trial date.

Guerrero-Espinoza and De La Rosa-Loera are the first two members of Agriprocessors’ management team to face charges since the May 12 immigration raid at the plant. Agriprocessors, the dominant kosher food company in the nation, is owned by the Rubashkin family, a politically-connected clan from Brooklyn, N.Y. Sholom Rubashkin stepped down as the company’s chief executive officer after the raid that resulted in the detention of 389 undocumented workers, most of whom were convicted of criminal wrongdoing and will be deported.

The indictment against Guerrero-Espinoza alleges that, a few days before the execution of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement search warrant, he told a group of employees that they needed new identification and social security numbers in order to continue working at the plant. He then, according to testimony, told the workers that they would need to provide him with a photograph and either $200 or $220.

The complaint against De La Rosa-Loera alleges he told some undocumented workers that they could no longer be employed at Agriprocessors because their identification was bad. He later allegedly told those same employees that they could return to work using the same names that had previously been used for employment.

Court documents also indicated the raid netted fraudulent permanent alien resident cards from the Agriprocessors human resources offices.

Authorities continue to search for a third supervisor, Hosam Amara. The indictment listing specific charges against Amara remains sealed.

Agriprocessors produces about 60 percent of the kosher meat and 40 percent of the kosher poultry in the U.S. market. The company’s brands include Aaron’s Best, Aaron’s Choice, European Glatt, Nevel, Shor Harbor, Rubashkin’s, Supreme Kosher, David’s and Iowa’s Best. Two-thirds of their products are nonkosher, and are sold through retailers including Wal-Mart and Trader Joe’s.

During a detention hearing this week, U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Jon Scoles ruled that Juan Carlos Guerrero, 35, and Martin De La Rosa-Loera, 43, should continue to be detained pending trial due to the weight of the evidence against them and their own previous criminal activity. Although Guerrera-Espinoza became a legal resident in 2002 and De La Rosa-Loera earned naturalized citizenship in 2006, both men originally entered the country illegally.

The earlier federal indictment alleged that a few days before the execution of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement search warrant at Agriprocessors in Postville, Guerrero-Espinoza told a group of employees that they needed new identification and social security numbers in order to continue working at the plant. He then, according to testimony, told the workers that they would need to provide him with a photograph and $200 or $220. Fraudulent resident alien cards were allegedly supplied to Agriprocessors workers. Guerrero-Espinoza is charged with aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft, and encouraging aliens to illegally reside in the U.S.

The complaint against De La Rosa-Loera alleges he told some undocumented workers that they could not longer be employed at Agriprocessors because their identification was bad. He later allegedly told those same employees that they could return to work using the same names that had previously been used for employment. De La Rosa-Loera is charged with aiding and abetting the possession and use of fraudulent identity documents and encouraging aliens to illegally reside in the U.S.

The May 12 raid resulted in the seizure of dozens of fraudulent permanent alien resident cards from the meatpacking plant’s human resources offices.

A preliminary hearing has been sent for July 17 at the temporary federal courthouse on C Street SW in Cedar Rapids.

Federal authorities continue to seek information on the whereabouts of a third supervisor, Hosam Amara.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security said the investigation continues, but would not say whether the agency anticipates more members of management to face charges.

An Agriprocessors spokesman refused comment on recent events except to say that plant management has and continues to cooperate with federal officials.

While two supervisors from Agriprocessors, a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, were arrested this week in connection with a May 12 immigration raid at the plant and appeared in federal court, a third remains on the run.

As originally reported by Iowa Independent, Hosam Amara is believed to have fled the jurisdiction. Amara, according to former plant workers, was the master-mind behind a car sales scheme that encouraged undocumented workers to purchase used cars and fraudulently register them.

Juan Carlos Guerrero-Espinoza, 35, and Martin De La Rosa-Loera, 43, have become the first two members of the company’s management team to face charges since the May raid. Agriprocessors, the dominant kosher food company in the nation, is owned by the Rubashkin family. a politically-connected clan from Brooklyn, New York. Sholom Rubashkin stepped down as the company

By Lorena López and Douglas Burns

Just days after nearly 300 Guatemalans working at a Postville, Iowa, meatpacking plant were nabbed in the largest immigration raid in U.S. history, an unknown entity sought to recruit more laborers from the Central American nation for jobs in the same small Iowa town — going so far as to run advertisements in two major Guatemalan newspapers that a government official there says have all the trappings of a “fraud.”

The mysterious newspaper ads, published in late May and also affixed to telephone poles and store walls in Guatemala City, sought people for meat-processing jobs in Postville  — site of the May 12 raid at the kosher slaughterhouse run by Agriprocessors, the only meatpacking facility in the town.

Of the 389 people caught in the U.S. Immigration Enforcement and Customs (ICE) raid, 295 were Guatemalans working at the facility, said Tim Counts, an ICE spokesperson.

The ads, published in the Guatemala City newspapers Prensa Libre and El Periodico, promised an “excellent opportunity of a job in the United States” for “men who have permission to work in the United States.”

The printed pitch goes on to say that the company was “located in a technologically developed town with a friendly atmosphere, pretty green areas, public schools and family recreation areas” — and that the jobs paid $8.50 an hour and offered medical and dental benefits.

The ads don’t specifically mention Agriprocessors, and the company says it has nothing to do with them.

“Here’s the bottom line: Agri didn’t place the ads,” said Jim Fallon, a spokesperson for Agriprocessors, the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking company and Postville’s biggest employer. “We don’t know who did it.”

Guatemalan government investigates

Guatemalan government officials say they are seeking the source of the ads.

“This is a case that is under investigation,” said Erick Mauricio Maldonado, general director for immigration issues in the Guatemalan Chancellor’s Office. The matter is now in the hands of the Public Minister’s Office in Guatemala City, Maldonado said in a phone interview with Iowa Independent.

Maldonado added, “The government doesn’t support any of this program because we don’t know where it is coming from or who is placing it.”

The ads included a cellular phone number for those interested. Iowa Independent called the number and received an answer saying the phone number was no longer in service.

So did Guatemalan officials, who said they received the same result.

Asked who paid for the ads, Gerardo Jimenez, editor of Prensa Libre, said, “We don’t know.” When pressed whether the accounting department at the paper might know anything about payments, the editor said the paper had no information.

Maldonado said Prensa Libre provided the same answer to the government. He said an investigation is under way because of the potential “fraud” involved.

In the United States, Counts said he could not disclose any information about an investigation. “Even if agents do know something about it, it is not something we would confirm,” Counts said.

Agriprocessors has been shaken by the raid. CEO Sholom Rubashkin, son of the company’s founder, stepped down in late May.

Last week, Iowa Independent reported that an Agriprocessors supervisor who sold used cars and gave favorable treatment to company employees had fled to Israel, according to people who knew him. A federal agent said in a sworn affidavit that there was “probable cause to believe” that the supervisor who sold used cars “aided in the harboring of illegal aliens.”

The Postville plant, owned and operated by the Rubashkin family, is one of the leading processors of kosher food in the country. Members of the Rubashkin family have donated more than $120,000 to the Iowa Republican Party and Republican office holders in recent years and a smaller amount to Democratic Gov. Chet Culver and Lt. Gov. Patty Judge.

The company is under federal investigation, according to news reports.

(Lorena López is editor of the western Iowa Spanish-language newspaper La Prensa. Douglas Burns is a fellow for Iowa Independent.)

Stress corrosion cracking in pipelines is blamed as a major reason why ethanol cannot currently be pumped from the Midwest through the nation's existing pipeline infrastructure.

Finding a solution to that problem is a goal of renewable fuels advocates as the production and use of ethanol continues to grow.

Just this morning, new legislation was announced that would provide funding for a federal study to determine the challenges involved with pumping ethanol and other renewable fuels through the nation's pipeline infrastructure. The study will also determine the feasibility of constructing a pipeline system dedicated to renewable fuels.

Congressman Leonard Boswell announced the introduction of the Ethanol Infrastructure Expansion Act today at a press conference in Pleasant Hill. The conference was held at Magellan Pipeline Company, a major fuel distribution hub for the region.

According to Boswell, the legislation is being co-sponsored by Republican Congressman Jerry Moran of Kansas. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin has introduced similar legislation in the Senate.

"This bill is a necessary first step in bringing ethanol to the rest of the country," said Boswell. "We need to break our bondage to OPEC."

Magellan Pipeline's government and media affairs director Bruce Heine thanked Boswell for his work on the bill and explained how the legislation would help prepare the nation's pipeline infrastructure to transport renewable fuels. Heine discussed some of the technical difficulties associated with transporting ethanol through pipelines, and why new technology is necessary. He also touted the benefits of using pipelines to move fuels. "Pipelines are the most economic way to transport large volumes of liquids," said Hein. "For example, transporting a gallon of gasoline from Houston to New York can be done for less than 3 cents per gallon."

As he announced the introduction of the bill, Boswell said that it would fund a feasibility study on the construction of a dedicated pipeline and also carry out research and development regarding the factors that prevent ethanol and biodiesel from being transported through existing pipelines. Boswell explained that the funding would be provided through a competitive solicitation process conducted by the Department of Energy. He said that the legislation would require that the secretary of energy and the secretary of transportation coordinate their efforts in conducting the studies.

Iowa Corn Growers Association Director Jim Meyer applauded the legislation and talked about how corn farmers are prepared to meet the demand. "It was, kind of, heartburn for the corn growers of Iowa and growers across the corn belt to get questioned on whether we could raise enough corn to meet the needs in the coming years," said Meyer. "We're really thrilled as corn growers to be able to show folks in the United States and maybe the world what we can do in the production of corn. Yields are going to have to be good. We've got the acres committed to corn production. And I don't think there's ever been a time that I can remember that we've had a chance to really pull out the all the stops and just see how much corn can be raised. Especially here in Iowa."

"We've got the ethanol production facilities coming on line and we've got the corn to meet the need," said Meyer. "But it isn't going to do any good unless we can get the product to the consumer. And that is why a dedicated pipeline for ethanol can be very crucial."

Monte Shaw, executive director of the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, echoed Meyer's comments on the ability of farmers to produce the needed product to meet the coming demand. He discussed the national debate on energy policy and renewable fuels standards and said, "What I'm a little afraid of is we don't seem to have the same level and intensity on the public debate regarding what we're going to do with that fuel. We can produce it. We can produce the feedstocks and produce these biofuels, but how are we going to get it to the market?"

"This bill is very important," said Shaw. "We can't wait until we're producing that 30- or 60-billion gallons of ethanol to figure this out. It takes a while to build some of this infrastructure. If we determine that pipelines are the way to go, and we need them, then we need to get started now so they'll be in place." Shaw explained some of the federal legislation that has been proposed regarding new renewable fuels standards, but stressed the importance of distribution infrastructure as part of the debate. "You know, maybe it's not as fun as talking about some big RFS number, but it's just as important, if not more important."

Jamie Cashman, a spokesman for Gov. Chet Culver, was also on hand to lend support to Boswell's legislation. Cashman noted Culver's dedication to growing the renewable fuels industry in Iowa, and spoke in favor of the pipeline infrastructure study.