Factory Farms, CAFOs—It Doesn't Have to Be This Way

O’Dovero-Flesia farm in Mellen, Wisconsin, Ashland County
This is the way things could be, if only Republicans listened.

Decency, kindness and courtesy in rural Wisconsin

"Rural America once had strong communities. It would have been very difficult for anyone who built a CAFO in a rural area in earlier times. It wasn’t socially or morally acceptable for one person in the community to benefit at the expense of others."
 —John Ikerd, Rural Communities of Necessity


Madison, Wisconsin—Thinking of our neighbors, the environment, our communities and families generations into the future is human decency.

You won't find such commitment from the CAFO, Confined Animal Feeding Operation, aka the polluting and dangerous factory farm. The CAFO is rapacious, heartless and will devastate entire communities without remorse.

For many multi-generational residents of Wisconsin fighting for their homes, the corporate officers of the odious Wysocki company in central Wisconsin, the Reicks View corporation working to devastate northern Wisconsin are in many day dreams made to swim in a pool of the liquid cow and pig manure they produce before beginning operations that destroy the dreams of 10,000s of Wisconsin families.

The last five years have seen the people rising in Green County, in central, northern and northeastern Wisconsin, as each new election cycle presents the question can clean-water and sustainable-farming activists get a victory against the GOP-backed CAFOs and other Big Ag operations that are the scourge of rural Wisconsin. [Sen. Tammy Baldwin, are you listening?]

The Sustain Rural Wisconsin Network is a "statewide coalition of individuals and organizations dedicated to preserving the environment while maintaining the health and economic vitality of rural communities."

Today, the sustainable O’Dovero-Flesia farm in Mellen, Wisconsin in Ashland County is featured in stories from the heartland. Mellen is way-up north, and is breathtaking.

The O’Dovero-Flesia farm is the way things should be, the way it used to be, the way it is now.

Five generations of O’Doveros have called these thousand acres at the base of the Penokee Hills home, and as I pulled into the driveway, I could understand why: it’s beautiful. Framed by a mixed hardwood and pine forest, the undulating pastures blend into the rising Penokee Hills. Two barns with fieldstone foundations (built in the late 1920s or early 1930s) wear the weathered patina of eighty-some years of Wisconsin rain, wind, snow, and sun. 

Recommend the piece for feel-good reading in a state anxious about what Scott Walker and the Republicans will do next.

As our friend Patt Pisellini of Rome, Wisconsin wrote in 2014:

I spent my summers in Clark County, on a dairy farm. We never had a [manure] 'lagoon,' and we took our cows out to pasture each morning.

Our milk was safe to drink, and our water did not test positive for nitrates.

Responsible dairy farmers would NEVER let such things happen - AND we knew the names of every cow, because they came when they were called. Our cows didn't recoil from human touch.

Those were the days.

Below John Ikerd, academic, speaks in Madison, Wisconsin in 2008 on kindness and decency in farming operations.

North Dakota Beats Big Ag Three-to-One in Citizens' Referendum

 "North Dakotans overwhelmingly rejected a haphazard law
passed by the state legislature to open the floodgates
to corporate farming," celebrates the Dakota Resource Council.
(North Dakota Secretary of State election results)

Corporate Ag is not interested in a show of hands, but North Dakota citizens are.

North Dakota citizens blocked a measure allowing industrialized agriculture to organize and consolidate factory farms using a corporate business model that would destroy family farming in North Dakota, following the trend in other states.

Voters passed referendum measure One, with over a three-to-one majority, 99,045 votes (75.70 percent) to 31,787 votes (24.30 percent).

The measure legally rejects a corporate-backed law passed last year.

Citizens used the North Dakota initiative process to reject a pending state statute backed by Big Agricultural interests and passed and signed into law last year.

The rejection in family-farmer friendly North Dakota was expected, and shines a light on the predatory nature of proliferating, industrialized agriculture that is destroying family farms across the country.

There are over 30,000 family-operated farms and ranches in North Dakota, (Bosman, New York Times).

The law overturned by North Dakota voters would have allowed corporate ownership of dairy and swine facilities on up to 640 acres of land, (Center for Rural Affairs).

Republican state governments, sometimes with the help of some Democratic Party officials, are engaged in pushing state laws and other initiatives to increase foreign ownership of American corporate agricultural entities on up to 640 acres of land.

In 2014, reports emerged from Wisconsin showing the Republican governor and the Republican attorney general working to allow foreign ownership of up to 640 acres of agricultural land, the same measure of land North Dakota would have given corporations the right to own and sell, (Ivey, The Capital Times), (Mal Contends).

Communities surrounding corporate ag operations, (called CAFOs), are fighting back but often face uphill battles against heavily funded corporate ag operations, and politicians whose allegiance Big Ag purchases.

Big Ag will litigate Measure One which now has the force of law.

"The North Dakota Farm Bureau, a lobbying organization that has farmer members, has adopted an alternative tactic in case the new law is defeated that takes aim at the 1932 law banning corporate farming. Earlier this month, it filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the law, arguing that it is discriminatory and unconstitutional," (Bosman, New York Times).

If the massively polluting industrialized agricultural model of corporate ag is held accountable to communities and citizens, the popular sentiment in North Dakota may signal the need for a lot of lawyers for Big Ag.

"We always believed that the people of North Dakota would agree that the family farm structure is best for our state’s economy and our communities," said Mark Watne, North Dakota Farmers Union president. "The results tonight are a strong message that the people don’t want corporate farming in North Dakota," (Pates, Grand Forks Herald).

From the Dakota Resource Council (DRC):

BISMARCK, ND— DRC members and allies celebrated a victory on Tuesday night after North Dakotans overwhelmingly rejected a haphazard law passed by the state legislature to open the floodgates to corporate farming.

:It was a hard-fought campaign and we worked diligently to educate North Dakotans and turn them out to vote. We are very pleased with the result," said DRC Chair Craig Scott, who lives in Burleigh County. "The fight is not over, and we will continue organizing and building people power to make North Dakota a great place to live."

Since 1932, North Dakota’s anti-corporate farming law has facilitated the growth of one of the strongest agricultural economies in the world. Measure 1 was a referral of SB 2351, a law rushed through the 2015 legislative session by proponents of corporate farming in an attempt to increase the number of cows and pigs in North Dakota. The law would have allowed non-family corporate ownership of land for concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

"This may have increased the number of animals but it would have decreased the number of family farmers and squeezed the wealth out of rural communities," said DRC member Father Tom Graner of Pierce County. "People in North Dakota made it clear they understand the dangers of corporations running our farms."

The defeat of Measure 1 is a testament to the power of ordinary people standing up and making their voices heard. DRC investigated what happens in other states with corporate agriculture operations and found stories of destruction, intimidation, and devaluation.

"Throughout other parts of our country that allow corporate farming, it is very clear that large confinement dairy and hog operations do not increase rural employment or promote rural economic development," said DRC member Jeri Lynn Bakken of Adams County, responding to the impacts of corporate farming on other states. "Corporate feeding operations employ far fewer and lower-paid workers than the family farmers that they inevitably displace."

In the shadow of the campaign against corporate farming and Measure 1, the town of Buffalo, ND is dealing with a proposed 9,000-hog factory. This is precisely the type of so-called animal agriculture North Dakotans rejected by voting No on Measure 1. A county-level approval decision is still pending. The full suite of videos, plus more information about Measure 1 and anti-corporate farming efforts, is available at http://drcinfo.org/familyfarms.

Although the anti-corporate farming law is supported by an overwhelming majority of North Dakotans, there are still people working to attack it. A few weeks ago, the North Dakota Farm Bureau filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the popular and effective anti-corporate farming law. That was a last ditch effort to try to undermine democracy and the will of North Dakotans.

"Men like my grandfather understood the way to build strong communities was to ensure family farmers owned the land they worked and lived in the communities they served," said Bakken. "By rejecting corporate farming, North Dakota becomes the trendsetter for a non-corporate model of modern agriculture that people around the country, and even the world, will want to emulate."
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See also CAFO: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories.

Election Day: Bernie Sanders, Yes; N.D. Corporate Ag Referendum, No

Election Day and the Parable of Smithfield Foods, [Not good. Irresponsible, and owned by China]

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Update: Small farmers and clean water advocates winning North Dakota Corporate Dairy and Swine Farming Referendum three-to-one in early returns as No votes block Big Ag.
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Bernie Sanders should stay and fight to Philly and beyond, irrespective of today's D.C. vote.

Two facts:

Hillary Clinton is demonstrating her Queen of Chaos side in the wake of Orlando.

California has some 2,000,000 ballots uncounted after obstructing non-Democratic Party-registering voters, (Op-Ed News) almost as badly as New York did.

North Dakota

North Dakotans should stop corporate agriculture, aka Big Ag, from taking over their state and vote No on the North Dakota Corporate Dairy and Swine Farming Referendum.

A No vote would have national repercussions in killing a Republican-enacted law giving a green light to industrialized agriculture, as corporate industrialized ag has swept the nation, smashing small farmers, massively polluting the country while inflicting cruel, heartless operations against living beings. [Enough to make me consider listening to my Dr. and stop eating too much fry food and steak.]

"While the debate is very much focused on maintaining the character of North Dakota, it also taps into widespread fears about the disappearance of family farms throughout the United States and the spread of big corporations and their farming methods into rural America," reports Julie Bosman, (New York Times).

Results after 9:00 Eastern at North Dakota Secretary of State's Election Results site,  (Senate Bill No. 2351 2015 North Dakota Session Laws, Ch 84)).

See also the Dakota Resource Council, and the North Dakota Farmers Union.

Big Ag is a political monster.

In Wisconsin Big Ag is single-handedly keeping Scott Walker in office, a political reality obscured by the Repulbican dominance of racist, white suburbs ringing Milwaukee.

Wisconsin and North Dakota have plenty of company in the United States, where few realize Big Ag is becoming increasingly owned by China, with the threat of turning large swaths of rural America into foreign-owned colonies.

As noted in these pages, said Gordon Stevenson, Wisconsin DNR runoff management chief (2001-2011):

Consider the Parable of Smithfield Foods. In 1936, a family built a small hog slaughtering and packing plant in Smithfield, Virginia. Their products were very good, the plant grew and town of Smithfield came to be known as the Ham Capital of the World. During the 1980s, the company vertically integrated. In plain English, that means they not only owned the processing facilities, but they figured out that if they controlled the production of hogs as well as processing they could be more profitable. By the end of 1998, Smithfield owned not only multiple packaging plants but 460 large hog farms and had contracts with 2,100 other pork producers 12 states. Smithfield Foods had become the number one pork producer in the United States and was growing internationally. They continued to grow, aggregating the assets of American pork production into larger and fewer blocks. Next time you go shopping, checkout the pork products. You will see labels like Morrell, Farmland, Armour and others. Smithfield owns all of those companies and multiple others. On September 26, 2013, Smithfield Foods and all of its holdings were sold to another company for $7.1 billion. [Bittman, NYT] The name of the company is Shuanghui International Holdings Limited.[Shuanghui changed its name this year to the 'WH Group' (BusinessWeek)]

Yes, a company from the People’s Republic of China now owns 26 percent of all of the assets of the American pork industry. This is the largest single Chinese purchase to date of American assets. China has successfully established an offshore economic colony on American soil. Let’s leave Virginia and Beijing and return to Wisconsin. We have dairy CAFOs in Wisconsin that are in the process of aggregating the assets of Wisconsin’s dairy industry into larger and fewer blocks. Any of those blocks can be bought and sold. I don’t believe I need to spell out why I told you the Parable of Smithfield Foods.

Twenty-six percent and spreading fast.

Family Farms, Yes; Corporate Agriculture, No

Industrialized agriculture is spreading in Wisconsin and across the nation.

It's toxic, cruel, predatory and without conscience.

This corporate model is also the first step towards foreign ownership of large swaths of American land on which foreign-owned corporate agriculture can pollute with impunity, (Mal Contends), transforming rural America into colonial status, (Mal Contends).

Whether the corporate entities owning industrialized agricultural operations are publicly traded or not, the model of corporate farmers is a clear and present danger to any community where these factory farms extract natural resources and inflict health and pollution costs onto the adjoining region and beyond.

In North Dakota, the North Dakota Corporate Dairy and Swine Farming Referendum, also known as Referred Measure 1, is on the June 14, 2016, ballot in North Dakota.

John Ikerd has the story, North Dakota as a parable for the nation.

By John Ikerd

FAIRFIELD, Iowa—Measure 1, the North Dakota referendum on corporate farming, is part of a national political strategy to remove all legal obstacles to the corporate takeover of American agriculture.

The campaign features a number of corporate myths:

Myth 1: Corporate farmers have the same values as traditional family farmers.

Reality: Traditionally, family farming has been a way of life as well as a means of making a living. True family farmers do not compromise their ethical or social values for the sake of profits. But large, publicly traded corporations have no ability to express the ethical or social values of their shareholders.

Corporations are legally obligated to serve the "common interests" of their investors. But the only "common interest" of the diverse investors in a large corporation is their interest in maximizing returns.

A corporation is not a person. It is a purely economic entity.

Myth 2: Large confinement dairy and hog operations will increase rural employment and economic development.

Reality: Large confinement animal feeding operations (CAFOs) employ far fewer and lower-paid workers than the family farmers the operations displace.

More than 50 years of research, including at UND, confirms that CAFOs depress rural economies, increase poverty and degrade rural communities' quality of life.

I recently compared a typical 1,000-cow dairy CAFO with a sufficient number of 50-cow organic dairy farms to produce the same amount of milk, using statistics provided by the University of Wisconsin Center for Dairy Profitability. The dairy CAFO would employ one manager and 15 milkers, while the 60 organic dairy farms would employ 30 dairy farmers and 30 milkers/workers.

As federal statistics confirm, whenever CAFOs have taken over industries—poultry, beef, pork, dairy—more than 90 percent of independent producers are lost.

CAFOs let corporations extract, not develop, rural wealth.

Myth 3: Corporate agriculture is essential to meet Americans' food needs.

Reality: New approaches to farming and food production are emerging in response to growing concerns about our industrial food system.

Genetic engineering, air and water pollution, antibiotic resistance, animal welfare and carcinogenic pesticides are just a few of these concerns.

The natural, organic and local food movements are the most visible responses to these concerns.

Free-range, pasture-based, grass-fed, humanely raised and hormone and antibiotic free are common labels for animal products.

Farmers markets and co-op grocery stores such as those in Grand Forks, Bismarck and Fargo provide markets for these products. Multi-farm food networks and home-delivery programs let sustainable farmers connect with hundreds of thousands of customers in distant cities.

This is the future of food and farming—not CAFOs.

Myth 4: Corporate farming is necessary to meet the demands of a growing global population.

Reality: Contrary to popular belief, today's industrial agriculture doesn't feed the people of the world. It mainly produces feed for animals and fuel for automobiles.

Most of the world's people feed themselves. United Nations statistics indicate that at least 70 percent of the world's population get their food from small scale family farms.

U.N. studies also show that production on these farms could be doubled or tripled without using industrial technologies or relying on outside corporate funding.

Myth 5: Corporate investments are needed to finance agricultural expansion.

Reality: North Dakota farmers have other means of financing legitimate agricultural expansions under existing laws.

Besides, corporations probably want the right to buy farmland more than the right to operate CAFOs. They know CAFOs are not a sustainable system of production and will face growing public demand for effective regulation. They also know there always will be a need for land to produce food, not matter how it is farmed.

About 70 percent of U.S. farmland is projected to change hands within the next 20 years. Farmland already nearly tops of the list of opportunities for speculative capital investments.

North Dakota's current anti-corporate farming law is an obstacle to such investments.
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Ikerd is a professor emeritus of agricultural economics at the University of Missouri. At the invitation of the Dakota Resource Council, he recently spoke against Measure 1 in four cities across North Dakota.