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  • From: <activism98201@verizon.net>
  • To: activism98201@verizon.net
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Al Krebs, a Fighter for Family Farmers
  • Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2007 22:48:31 -0500 (CDT)

Awhile back a friend asked me if I knew anything of A.V. Krebs. I had to
respond that I didn't: I'm not sure if he did either, as he asked me if I
knew anything of this "guy." After some quick research I found out that
Krebs was an overall activist, and an activist for farming in particular. I
discovered that he'd written some substantial books. AND, I discovered that
he lived right in my backyard! I couldn't help but feel excited to seek this
Krebs person out. I sent out an e-mail but did not receive a response; and
sadly, I now know why.

Another real hero gone. I never knew you A.V. Krebs, but I feel that you
have influenced my life in ways that I have yet to find out... I'll be
ordering a copy of "The Corporate Reapers: The Book of Agribusiness" right
away.


-Mark Nagel
Everett, WA

[Note: For anyone reading The Omnivore's Dilema you'll notice the mention of
George Naylor's name in this article. Al and George appear to have known
each other very well.]

[Note2: CounterPunch.org always gets the good stuff!]

Source: http://counterpunch.org/gray10152007.html

Seek the Facts, Agitate, Raise Hell
Al Krebs, a Fighter for Family Farmers

By HEATHER GRAY

I was first aware of Al Krebs in the 1990s at a Farm Aid event. Merle Hansen
of the North American Farm Alliance was walking everywhere at the meeting
holding fast to The Corporate Reapers: The Book of Agribusiness. I asked him
about this. He said the book was his bible-- the magnum opus on the history
of exploitive corporate agribusiness by Al Krebs. Krebs, I soon learned, was
the guru, the intellectual and activist genius of the family farmer advocacy
movement and like everyone else I craved to know him - to sit next to him and
attempt to absorb his vast knowledge. In subsequent years that's precisely
what I have tried to do at every opportunity.

On October 9, 2007 this renowned pro-family farmer/anti-corporate
agribusiness journalist and historian Al Krebs died from liver cancer. He was
75 years old and what a fighter he was!

Talking with Al was always a unique experience --you would share a thought on
something agricultural, he would respond and then suddenly launch into a
discourse of facts and figures and personal experiences about the issue you
had barely touched upon and barely knew about. I talked with him frequently
from my Atlanta home, sometimes into the wee hours of the night and was
usually astonished by his depth of knowledge. You were suddenly being taught
the history of it all --probably more than you wanted to hear. As John
Hansen, President of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said this week, "once Al
learned something it was in his head forever."

Al was born in Santa Monica in 1932 and grew up in California. His former
wife Margaret tells us that "Al was Jr. to his father Albert Valentine Krebs
Sr. Krebs Sr. was the chief electrician for a movie studio and was
responsible for making the birds fly off the phone lines in Alfred
Hitchcock's "The Birds" and he made a special bit for the talking "Mr. Ed".
His mother, Ione, owned a handmade (she made them) braided rug shop that was
frequented by celebrities." He was married to Margaret from September 1958 to
October 1971. She has since re-married. Al also has two sons, Jonathon and
David, daughter-in-law Leigh Arevalo married to David and two grandsons
Alexander and Ryan.

There was a lot that obviously propelled this young genius and honed his
skills. He was quite involved in the Catholic church which, he told me,
offered a vast array of speakers on civil rights and other justice issues in
the 1940's and 1950's that left its mark. In 1957 he received a bachelors
degree in English from Seattle University, but prior to that he was already
writing and involved in journalism. Early on his love of sports became
apparent. It was in high school that Al began his career as a journalist with
the LA Examiner in the Sports Department. While citing statistics of various
sorts, Al covered the vast school sports program in Los Angeles.

John Hansen noted that "anyone unfortunate enough to attend baseball games
with Al got the entire lineup history and current statistics, the ownership
and management history, and the batting averages with men on base with either
right or left handed pitching." Al's good friend Mike Galvin commented that
though, "A kind and gentle person, Al said he never hated anything but the
New York Yankees."

His Seattle University experience offered for Al the mixture of journalism
and activism that continued for the rest of his life. Galvin notes "Al worked
on the Seattle University Spectator as an editor and writer. He was very
active in school activities including Catholic social activism, politics and
the intellectual discussions and debate during a time leading up to Vatican
2. He also was an assistant drama critic to Lou Guzzo at the Seattle Times
before moving to San Francisco where he pursued a career in teaching and
writing. His concern for the poor went so far as to help establish soup
kitchens for the homeless in connection with the Catholic Worker movement."

The next phase of Al's life and work is a line up of the most profound
activists and organizations in contemporary American family farmer and farm
worker activism. In the early 1960's he was a free-lance journalist and
contributor to the National Catholic Reporter. This was when Al encountered
Caesar Chavez of the United Farm Workers. I have tried to imagine the
spirited conversations these two must have had --I would love to have been
the infamous fly on the wall!! It was during this period in 1964 that Chavez
had Al break the news about the Mexican and Filipino Grape Workers Strike in
California's Central Valley.

Here's the listing of his work in the 1960's to the present: National
Sharecroppers Fund (1969-70) --New York; Jim Hightower's Agribusiness
Accountability Project (1971-75); Consumer Action-San Francisco (1975-76);
San Francisco Study Center (1977-1989); California Food Policy Project
(1978-1980); Rural America (1979-1983); Ralph Nader's Center for the Study of
Responsive Law (1989-1992); PrairieFire Rural Action (1993-95); Director of
the Corporate Agribusiness Research Project (1995-2007) which was devoted to
monitoring the activities of corporate agribusiness from a public interest
perspective which included weekly email updates "The Agribusiness Examiner"
to over 1,000 subscribers. He also distributed weekly the "Calamity Howler"
which was filled with articles and information he wanted all of us to know
about such as the non-agricultural corporate and government abuses from Karl
Rove to the Iraq War fiasco to the concern for the safety of miners, etc.

He served on the Board of Directors or volunteered for the: North American
Farm Alliance; National Family Farm Coalition; Organic Consumers Association
Policy Advisory; Family Farm Defenders. He was featured significantly at Farm
Aid events. He was asked to speak on the shenanigans of corporate agriculture
at events in India and Europe.

In the midst of his agriculture research, he got to know the likes of
anthropologist Walter Goldschmidt (author of "As You Sow") who, during the
1930's and 40's New Deal period, engaged in research on the harmful effects
of corporate agribusiness and large acreage ownership in rural America and
the disastrous consequences of industrial agriculture on the workers and
communities alike. He occasionally talked with noted economist John Kenneth
Galbriath who, he told me, stressed the importance of federal assistance to
farmers based, of course, on empirical research. In a 1954 controversial
speech to USDA graduates Galbraith said that the Eisenhower administration's
contrary opinion on farmer assistance was "sonorous boondoggling" and an
"evil viewpoint."

The views and research of Goldschmidt and Galbraith resonated throughout Al's
agricultural philosophy, research and commentary.

What was it like to work with Al? Here's what John Hansen had to say: "Al was
a close friend of mine. We met in 1972 when we both worked for the
Agribusiness Accountability Project in Washington, D.C. Al taught me how to
do agribusiness research. His journalistic background and the research
standards he brought to every issue were impeccable. His research and
writing on agribusiness and family farm issues changed the course of more
than one public policy battle over the many years.

"You had to be glad that Al was on our side. Anyone unfortunate enough to go
grocery shopping with Al got the "rest of the story" on who owns what brands
and the "illusion of choice" in the supermarket aisle. The passion of his
life was family farm agriculture. He had more institutional memory on who
the agribusiness conglomerates were than any other person I have ever met or
known.

"He was a walking family farm agriculture historian who chose to defend our
traditional system of family farmer and rancher owned and operated
agriculture. His research skills, and standards were remarkable. When you
got the facts from Al, you knew they were solid, or he would not have used
them."

All of his work prepared him for what most consider his major achievement
--The Corporate Reapers: The Book on Agribusiness published in 1992 by
Essential Books. Al described to me the process of writing this mammoth
history and how thankful he was to have had friends with whom he could
discuss the book as well as the supportive community that offered him
financial assistance and space to concentrate. It is said to have taken 10
years to write The Corporate Reapers in various phases. Ralph Nader was one
of those who helped fund the project.

The Corporate Reapers is a remarkably detailed 600 page history of American
agriculture from the 1700's to the 1990's. Al describes the struggles and
movements of family farmers and rural communities to hold on to their
livelihood, their land, their economic independence and integrity while
constantly being challenged by corporate agribusiness and corrupt
politicians. Al explained at length that the corporate agribusiness control
is at the expense of consumers, the environment, our health and our
democracy. Ralph Nader writes "A veritable almanac of information, The
Corporate Reapers details how multinational agribusiness has worked to
destroy the family farm. Krebs explains that the decline of the family farm
is not a result of the interplay of market forces, but rather of the
price-fixing and anti-competitive policies of Cargill, Continental and
ConAgra and the allies."

In the introduction Al provides an overview of the philosophy behind the
takeover by corporate agribusiness the past century and it's anti-competitive
thrust described by Nader above. The rest of the book is the history of it
all and what folly it is to destroy our family farm tradition and that all of
us --farmers and non-farmers alike - are threatened by this. First he defines
agribusiness, which goes beyond the production of food to the ownership of
seeds, wholesaling and distribution of machinery, fertilizer, packaging,
processing and marketing food --in other words everything. Then the
philosophy of takeover --going in for the kill: imposing free enterprise -
this is anything but free as it's based on no competition and government
policies that serve the corporate agribusiness conglomerates; the disposal of
excess human resources --in other words the farmers --get rid of the farmers
and millions of others off productive land in the interest of the powerful
elite; the bigger is better efficiency philosophy - which is absolute
nonsense in agriculture --the family farmer is by far the most efficient and
best steward of the land; the implementation by agribusiness of SOCO (single
overriding corporate philosophy): (1) substituting capital for efficiency
and technology for labor (2) the standardization of our food supply, and (3)
the creation of manufactured, synthetic food --in other words destroy our
family farmer system and healthy foods for the bottom line.

Al says, "what is the meaning of economic and political democracy when
corporate power so often is able to impose its own will and narrow interests
on a government originally designed of, by and for the people, and thus
thwarts the will of those very same people?"

Al appropriately dedicated his book to the "stewards of the land: those men,
women and children who plant, nurture and harvest nature's bounty of food."
On December 13, 1992, He wrote the following in Ralph Paige's (Executive
Director of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives) copy of The Corporate
Reapers "Ralph: Seek the facts, Agitate, Raise hell, Reap the harvest, and
share the bounty. In Solidarity, Al Krebs."

Lessons from Al Krebs? There are so many for me! Here are a few.

(1) If you want to challenge corporate America, he told me, one effective way
is to purchase shares, attend shareholder meetings and raise hell.

He did that years ago in a concerted effort on behalf farm worker rights in
the US and American corporate agribusiness abusive treatment of workers in
other countries.

(2) Don't let anyone get away with not speaking out about injustices --even
and especially if they are your friends.

When Bush's buddies were first occupying Iraq and Bush appointed former
Cargill executive Daniel Amstutz as the head of "Agriculture Reconstruction,"
Al was furious. Why were American agriculture organizations and activists not
speaking out on behalf of Iraqi farmers? Al knew that with Cargill having the
reputation of being one the worst violators of the rights and independence of
family farmers throughout the world, the Iraqi farmers were doomed. Al,
George Naylor (President of the National Family Farm Coalition) and I
discussed what could be done about this. My contribution was an article, that
Al helped me write, with reference to Amstutz, entitled "Home Grown Axis of
Evil: Corporate Agribusiness, the Occupation of Iraq and the Dred Scott
Decision."

(3) You can't be effective in your organizing work unless you can it back up
with facts and history --so know them!!!

Probably more than any contemporary writer I know, Al would incorporate his
dialogue and writing with historical quotes and treatises. His book The
Corporate Reapers is a feast of these.

He was an inspiration and always there in 2006 when we at the Federation of
Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund, where I work, were researching
farm subsidies and the impact on Black cotton farmers should the Congress end
the program. I spent hours talking with him about farm subsidies to
understand the program itself and its history. Al agreed with one of the
Alabama Black cotton farmers we interviewed who warned that "if the
government gets out of agriculture, both farmers and consumers are doomed.
All of us will have to serve at the behest and control of corporate America."
The farmer inferred that all of us might starve if that's what corporate
America wanted.

(4) Everyone must stand prepared to move forward for justice no matter your
circumstances --money or otherwise --just do it!! Be vigilant!

Toward the end of his life Al was prepared to fight the battle for the 2007
Farm Bill. He was never able to get the financial support he needed for his
newsletter but nevertheless he made sure his newsletter was published
regardless. In one of his last newsletters on June 11 of this year, Al said:
With the 2007 Farm Bill on the horizon and most likely a new Democratic Party
administration in charge THE AGRIBUSINESS EXAMINER has no intention in
relenting its demand for full accountability from not only government policy
makers and officials but also from farm organizations."

When USDA Secretary Mike Johans retired in September 2007 to run for the
Nebraska Senate seat being vacated by Chuck Hagel, from his bed Al called
Kathy Ozer, Director of the National Family Farm Coalition, to discuss what
this meant. In recent conversations with Al, Kathy also asked him if he would
like the recent biography of Senator Russ Feingold and, of course, he did.
"He was political to the end," Kathy said.

I have just touched on the history of Al Krebs. Importantly, however, his
legacy will be profound as he taught and mentored so many in the agriculture
movement. Mark Ritchie, now Minnesota's Secretary of State with whom Al had
been associated for years, told me that Al managed to bridge and bring
together the west, mid-west and eastern agriculture family farm and farm
worker movements because he knew them all. Ritchie also said that he was
instrumental in bridging the generations of farm movement advocacy work,
which was a major and important achievement and contribution.

I will finish this with words directly from Al. He was so prolific that it's
difficult to choose something appropriate from his vast work. But I decided
it best to choose a passage from the last chapter of The Corporate Reapers
which is a challenge to us all. The chapter is appropriately entitled
"Bringing the Corporate State under Democratic Control." Written in the early
1990's his challenge is, unfortunately, as relevant today as in the 1990's.

"As the United States confronts the economic and political morass of the
1990's and keeping in mind that the early 1990's also marks the centennial of
the agrarian populist movement, the time has come to disengage ourselves from
the endless fratricide debates that have existed in the past among farmers,
farm workers, labor, consumers and environmentalists. Rather, this period
should be viewed as that one propitious 'democratic moment' in our lifetimes
that we begin to seriously put together a progressive populist movement.

"It is time to be bold in our vision if we are going to be about the
business of reviving the agrarian populist spirit of the 1880's and 1890's,
we need to both think and act "globally," but act locally.

"Yes, Joe Hill. We need to quit mourning and start organizing!

"Rural Americans and family farmers in particular have traditionally
associated themselves with the ideals of American democracy as enunciated by
Thomas Jefferson and embodied in the rich historical tradition of agrarian
populism. They should not be ignored for the leadership they can and should
provide in our nation's continuing struggle for economic and political
democracy."

Heather Gray produces "Just Peace" on WRFG-Atlanta 89.3 FM covering local,
regional, national and international news. She can be reached at
hmcgray@earthlink.net




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