Secretary of Agriculture Patty Judge spoke in a Women and Political Leadership course Tuesday.

Judge focused on the story of her life, followed by a short question-and-answer session with the class of 50 students. She said that her story is not “particularly unique.”

Judge was born in Fort Madison and has lived in Iowa her entire life.

“If something made a difference in my life, it was the farm crisis in the ’80s,” Judge said. “When the crisis hit, it was extremely hard on our family.”

During the farm crisis, Judge managed farms as a court-ordered receiver.

“If you can walk up to a farmer’s door and say, `Hi, I’m here to take charge of your farm,’ that’s courage,” she said.

Judge did not anticipate running for political office. She attended her first political caucus in 1986.

“By the late ’80s, I grew to believe that issues that I think are important were not being addressed. Rural parts of the state seemed to be left behind, so I decided to run for Senate,” she said.

Judge said she faced some challenges related to the fact that she is a woman working in agriculture.

“I have found that there is always some resistance because of my gender,” she said. “Because of how I have lived my life, so closely related to agriculture for so long, I find it puzzling how some people can think I can’t do my job.”

In 1992, Judge was elected to the Iowa Senate and won re-election in 1996 with 62 percent of the vote. While in the Senate, she served as Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee as well as the Natural Resources and Ways and Means Committees.

Judge, at the age of 50, was the youngest woman elected to Senate. Her husband was the first man to succeed his wife in the history of the Senate.

Preceding the 1998 election, the opportunity to run for Secretary of Agriculture presented itself.

“To elect a woman Democrat from Southern Iowa – it was not mainstream thinking,” Judge said.

“My husband thought I was nuts, but I was going to do it anyway.”

During the campaign, she visited almost every town in Iowa.

“We had a very aggressive campaign and fundraising techniques,” Judge said. “I put 55,000 miles on my car.”

Judge was elected Secretary of Agriculture in 1998.

“Agriculture is going to continue to drive the economy in Iowa,” Judge said.

“You cannot replace the $13-$14 billion per year that agriculture pumps into the economy, yet the industry is changing so rapidly.”

Judge said the question now is not whether farming will continue in Iowa, but who will do the farming.

“If we don’t get things right in the next four or five years, we will see changes that will not be the best for Iowa,” she said.

Currently, Iowa has the highest concentration of livestock, Judge said.

“I do not believe that a midsize family farm operation will have much of a future in this state,” Judge said.

Judge said there will be tremendous opportunities for Iowa farmers if they can think beyond corn and beans to things such as organic production.

“People are thinking of things not normally grown in Iowa. Three or four families are competitively producing table-quality wine,” she said.

Judge was presented with questions concerning ethanol, bioterrorism and wind production facilities.

“Last spring with foot-and-mouth disease, we were afraid. We developed plans for containment and eradication, in the chance that disease would reach Iowa. We went to Camp Dodge and practiced this plan, all before Sept. 11,” she said.

“We had and still have a good plan for dealing with the introduction of disease into Iowa livestock.”