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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

Fighting for Local Control

Published: December 2, 2004

Given the results of the election, voters' power should be strong and 
healthy in rural America. Perhaps it is when it comes to voting for 
statewide and national offices, but not when it comes to local 
environmental issues - especially concerning factory farms. The latest 
example is Minnesota. Unlike Iowa and Wisconsin, Minnesota still retains 
the principle of control at the township level. Local residents can, for 
instance, decide whether they want a large-scale hog-confinement operation 
next door. That has kept Minnesota relatively free of the mammoth factory 
farms that have polluted Iowa.

But last year Gov. Tim Pawlenty convened a 14-member advisory group - a 
virtual cross section of industrial agriculture in the state - to find ways 
to increase the number of livestock in Minnesota. The task force released 
its report last June. Its principal recommendation is to weaken local 
control in order to remedy what the report calls "the lack of 
predictability and uniformity" in the creation of factory farms.

The report also advises exploring the possibility of raising the number of 
animals allowed on such farms before environmental reviews kick in and 
moving the approval process to the state capital. And it attacks 
Minnesota's Corporate Farm Law, which prohibits corporate farming.

The report has caused an uproar, for good reason. It's a blueprint for the 
destruction of family farming in Minnesota. The way to aid animal 
agriculture isn't to sell out to corporate interests or make rural 
residents feel powerless. It's to increase the diversity of Minnesota 
farming, build new markets and preserve rural life. Massive feedlots and 
hog-confinement operations do none of that.

This report is the result of a one-sided task force, whose advice was 
assembled without consulting a wide range of Minnesota farmers. It fosters 
one-sided agriculture, driven only by corporate interests. The 
concentration and homogenization of animal agriculture, which ultimately 
depends on underpriced grain, has been a social and environmental disaster 
in the Upper Midwest. The evidence isn't hard to find. All Governor 
Pawlenty needs to do is take a drive through central Iowa, where corporate 
factory farms are a blight on the land.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/opinion/02thu3.html?oref=login