Reclaiming Rural America from Corporate Agriculture

Reclaiming Rural America from Corporate Agriculture[i]

John Ikerd[ii]

This paper is a statement of my truth about what’s happening in rural America, why it’s happening, and what rural people can do about it. Your truth may be different from mine, and if so, that’s okay with me. What’s most important is that we each have sound reasons for believing what we believe to be true. And, “because someone else wrote it or said it,” is not a sound reason for believing anything. I write and speak my truth with conviction because I know why I believe what I believe to be true.

Rural communities are being systematically polluted and plundered by an industrial agriculture that is increasingly under the control of large agribusiness corporations. A quick examination of the types of economic development strategies being touted for rural areas reveals some valuable insights into their dilemma. Many rural communities, desperate for jobs, are encouraged to compete for new prisons. If they can’t get a prison, they may be encouraged to settle for a landfill, so they can bury trash from some distant urban center. If they can’t get a landfill, they can probably get a toxic waste incinerator or a nuclear waste site. And if all else fails, they are encouraged to roll out the welcome mat for large-scale confinement animal feeding operations. The corporate world sees rural areas as empty spaces occupied by desperate people that can be exploited as dumping grounds for the wastes from their environmentally and socially degrading business activities. The profits go to wealthy corporate investors, while rural people are paid but a few dollars to dispose of their human, material, and animal wastes.

I understand such economic development strategies. I spent the first half of my academic career and two-thirds of my life as a conservative, bottom-line, free market economist. I wasn’t worried all that much about what was happening to the rural environment or to rural people. I trusted the competition of free markets to guide humanity toward a more productive and prosperous future. However, my faith in the “invisible hand” of economics was shaken during the farm financial crisis of the 1980s. Even “good farmers” were going broke – the farmers who had done what we economists had said they should do. As I began to open my mind and my eyes to what else was happening, I could see that our farmland was being washed away, our streams and groundwater were being polluted with agricultural chemicals, and our farm communities were in economic decline and social decay.

I eventually came to the conclusion that these ills were not the natural consequences of agriculture, but instead were symptoms of a particular kind of agriculture, an agriculture driven by specialization, standardization, and consolidation – an industrial agriculture driven by the economic bottom line. During the 1990s, as I watched the giant agribusiness corporations take control of American agriculture, I was forced to conclude that America agriculture quite simply is not sustainable. I understand where the advocates of industrial agriculture are coming from because I have been there. Issues this controversial invariably reflect legitimate concerns on both sides and none of us should be so egotistical as to believe that only we know the ultimate truth of such things. My truth is simply different from that of the advocates of industrial agriculture.

My truth also is based on conversations with rural people all across the U.S. and Canada who are increasingly concerned about what is happening to their ecological and social environment. I provided leadership for a five-year, three-state program linking sustainable agriculture with rural community development. I also have met with rural people concerned about the impacts of large-scale confinement animal feeding operations on their communities in more than a dozen states in the U.S. and three provinces of Canada. I have not just talked to rural people; I have also listened to rural people, including people with a wide range of opinions.

I have reviewed journal articles, books, and research reports from a wide variety of sources. A 2006 University of North Dakota report prepared for the North Dakota Attorney General’s office summarizes much of the research-base information related to the negative impacts of industrial agriculture on rural communities. The lead author concluded, after summarizing five decades of government and academic research, “public concern about the detrimental community impacts of industrialized farming is warranted.”[1] A report prepared for the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union also provides an overview and an extensive list of references related to the economic, ecological, and social impacts of industrial agriculture on rural communities.[2] My truth is based on everything I have learned from a twenty-year process of reading, studying, thinking, and listening to real people who were confronting real problems.

Confinement animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are the epitome of what’s wrong with what is happening in rural America today. They obviously are not the sole cause of concern for rural communities but CAFOs exemplify what’s wrong with the corporate industrialization of American agriculture. They pollute the air and water, deplete the productivity of the land, destroy the social fabric of rural communities, and contrary to popular belief, threaten the future of American agriculture and the economies of rural communities. So I focus my comments in this paper on the CAFO issue, to keep it reasonable in scope, but the same conclusions hold for industrial agriculture in general, particularly as it comes under corporate control. The corporate industrial model already exemplifies production of fruits and vegetables, poultry and eggs, beef and pork, and is in the process of taking over dairy production, with field crops likely next in line. The impacts and consequences of corporate industrialization are just more obvious for CAFOs.

Obviously, each community I have visited over the years is different, but they all have many similarities. The agribusiness corporations invariably promote CAFOs as a logical rural economic development strategy and the only means of maintaining a viable agriculture sector in farming communities. The rural people opposing CAFOs invariably are concerned about odors and pollution of streams and groundwater – which ultimately are concerns about health – and about the impacts of CAFOs on the overall quality of life in their communities. Local public officials invariably want to know whether any potential economic benefits of CAFOs are worth the ecological and social costs.

The promoters of CAFOs tend to target rural communities that are desperate for economic development, although once established, they may branch out into surrounding areas as well. Local leaders are told that the CAFO will add to local employment and the local tax base. The effects of increased local spending for buildings, equipment, feed, and feeder livestock are supposed to multiply as they ripple through the community, resulting in additional expenditures for groceries, clothes, housing, automobiles, healthcare, and other consumer necessities. Increased property tax collections will then pay for better local schools, roads, and other public services. The actual economic impacts are invariably are quite different from those promised.

However, the promoter’s claims are given instant credibility by support from the agricultural establishment, which includes the large agricultural colleges, federal and state departments of agriculture, corporate agribusinesses, large agri-cooperatives, major commodity associations, and some general farm organizations, such as the Farm Bureau Federation. In truth, the people of rural areas, including farmers, are being systematically misled by those whom they most trust. Many academic, political, agribusiness professionals have built their reputations promoting the industrialization of agriculture and are unwilling to risk the loss of prestige, power, or profits by admitting that today’s factory farms no longer benefits anyone other than themselves and a few large corporate investors. Or perhaps, they are simply resigned to corporatization as the future of agriculture and choose not to resist it.

Regardless, the truth concerning the economic impacts of CAFOs on rural communities is very different from the propaganda of the promoters. The truth can be seen most clearly by looking at communities where CAFOs have been embraced, or at least accepted, as a prominent strategy for rural economic development. After several decades of large-scale contract poultry and beef production and more than a decade of widespread contract CAFO hog production, not a single community where CAFOs represent a significant segment of the local economy is looked upon today as a model of economic success or prosperity. Admittedly, corporations tend to locate CAFOs in areas that are economically depressed, but CAFOs have consistently failed to bring about significant improvements in either unemployment or overall economic well-being of local residents.

First, corporate contractors buy very few of their building materials, equipment, feed, or feeder animals in the local community. It’s typically cheaper and easier to bring them in from elsewhere. In addition, many of those who ultimately are employed in confinement operations, feed mills, and slaughter plants turn out to be immigrants to the communities, not local residents. The jobs typically are low-paying jobs with few if any medical benefits. Thus, the additional needs for public services typically outweigh any economic contribution of added employment. Most workers employed in hog and dairy CAFOs, for example, earn $15,000-$17,000 per year, with few if any fringe benefits. While this may sound like decent jobs in some rural communities, these kinds of jobs cannot provide the foundation for an economically viable rural community.

Perhaps the most compelling arguments against relying on CAFOs as a source of rural economic development is that communities in which CAFOs become prominent typically are unable to attract any other type of economic development. Some communities, where CAFOs are few and are located well away from residential areas, may continue to grow. But people simply do not want to live and work in a community that other people consider to be “polluted.” By virtually every measure, the quality of life in a community declines after a community becomes identified as “CAFO friendly.”

Even if community leaders are not convinced of the overall economic benefits, they are told that CAFOs are essential to maintaining the agricultural sector of the local economy. If they place too many local restrictions of CAFOs, they will be denying local farmers their only realistic opportunity to continue their chosen occupation in farming. Nearby communities will welcome CAFOs, they are told; communities that discourage CAFOs will still have to deal with environmental and social consequences without receiving any of the economic benefits. Proponents argue that being “unfriendly to CAFOs,” is being “unfriendly to farming.”

Again, the truth is quite different from the hype. First, today’s corporate CAFOs are a continuation of a long-term trend toward the industrialization of agriculture. Since the 1930s, U.S. farms have been becoming more specialized and routinized, larger in size and fewer in number. Today, corporate contract production is allowing agricultural operations to grow far larger than was previously possible for individual farmers or even family corporations. Continuing this trend toward industrialization obviously will result in even fewer people controlling agriculture and even fewer real farmers CAFOs may employ a few local farm workers, but all of the important decisions, and real profits, will be made by people in corporate headquarters, not by farmers. Most farmers who resort to CAFOs actually end up as investors who own the production facilities that other people actually operate. Increasing corporate control of agriculture inevitably leads to fewer farmers.

The corporations that increasingly control agriculture are not people; they are financial entities created for the purpose of amassing large amounts of capital. A family corporation is no different from a family, as the social and ethical values of the family can still be reflected in the decisions of the corporations. The large, publicly traded agribusiness corporations are fundamentally different; their primary obligation and highest priority is to maximize profits and growth for the benefit of their stockholders. The people who work for corporations may be good people, but they have no choice but to maximize profits, regardless of the ecological and social consequences.

Corporations have no families, no communities, and increasingly, no single nationality. Eventually, corporately controlled agricultural operations will be forced to leave rural communities in the U.S. and Canada. Labor and investment costs are far lower in other countries of the world where the giant multinational corporations also operate today, and environmental concerns and constraints are far less in those “less-developed” countries. People of many other countries of the world are even more desperate for economic opportunities than are people in rural America. Eventually, the contract CAFO operations will leave North America, leaving rural communities with the mess to be cleaned up.

The advocates of CAFOs argue that a corporate agriculture is necessary to feed a growing global population, even if much of future food production occurs in other countries. However, with the exception of poultry, the shift from family farms to corporate CAFOs has not resulted in increased productivity. Contract poultry production was accompanied by major changes in production technology, which could have been made available to family farmers, but weren’t. For beef and pork production, CAFO technologies are much the same as those used by family farms, just carried on a much larger scale. In fact, well-managed family farms have been widely documented as being just as productive as large-scale CAFO operations. Well-managed modest-scale family farms are clearly capable of meeting the needs of today’s society. The major challenge confronting global society in the future is the absolute dependence of industrial agriculture on non-renewable fossil energy. We have perhaps a 50-year window of opportunity to create a new “sustainable agriculture,” and CAFOs will have no place in this new agriculture of the future.

So what should agricultural producers do? Even if they would prefer to continue farming as independent producers, they are told by the agricultural establishment there are simply no logical alternatives to large-scale, contract production. The new farming opportunities emerging in response to food safety, environmental, and social concerns are dismissed as small niche markets that hold promise for only a few, small, specialty farmers. However, the reality again is quite different. Together, the new markets for foods produced by socially and ecologically responsible farming methods – sustainably produced foods – are creating a new mainstream for American agriculture.

The market for organic foods has been growing at a rate of more than 20% per year over the past 15 years, doubling every three to four years. This growing preference for organic is not simply a reflection of consumers trying to avoid pesticide and agrichemical residues in their foods. Consumers are concerned about genetically modified foods, hormones and antibiotics, e-coli, obesity, and a wide range of social and ethical issues, including the impacts of their food choices on farmers, farm workers, and stewardship of land and water resources. They want food they can trust.

Recent surveys indicate that around three-fourths of American consumers have a strong preference for locally grown foods preferably grown on small family farms. They want to know where their food comes, how it is produced, and who produced it. Many Americans have simply lost confidence in the integrity of the corporations and the government agencies with whom the integrity of the food system has been entrusted. Increasingly, they are buying as much of their food as possible from people they know and trust.

Among the most profitable of the new sustainable/local alternatives are grass-based, free-range, and pastured livestock and poultry. Pastured and free-range poultry production became popular because of growing concerns about health and food safety and about inhumane growing conditions in industrial poultry production. Grass-based livestock operations initially gained popularity because of low investment requirements and low cost of production. However, it has become increasingly popular because of growing evidence of important health benefits in grass-fed products compared with products from animals fed in confinement. Pastured and free-range livestock production also allows producers to avoid hormones and antibiotic concerns and to meet the humane standards of production demanded by an increasing number of consumers.

Producing hogs on deep bedding in hoop houses provides another viable alternative to the slatted floors, cramped crates, and manure lagoons of CAFOs. Studies at Iowa State University have shown that hogs can be produced in hoop houses just as efficiently as in CAFOs; they just require better management and more hog farmers. Studies at various universities have shown grass-based dairy farms to be more profitable than confinement dairy operations, in fact, among the most profitable of all farming operations. When farmers take the initiative to process and market their own meat, milk, and cheese directly to discriminating consumers, their profits are often multiplied.

The markets for sustainable/local meats and milk are growing far faster than are the numbers of farmers willing to produce for these new markets. The number of farmers markets – where meat, cheese, and eggs are taking their place along side local produce – has more than doubled in the past ten years. Increasingly, food buying clubs are offering their subscribers animal products along with vegetables and berries. Sustainable livestock, dairy, and poultry producers also have opportunities to market through national organizations such as Organic Valley (http://organicvalley.coop/) and Niman Ranch (http://www.nimanranch.com/) or to form their own cooperative organizations, such as Country Natural Beef of Oregon (http://www.oregoncountrybeef.com/index.html ) and Good Natured Family Farms of Kansas (http://www.goodnatured.net/ ). There are a growing number of profitable and sustainable alternatives for farmers. CAFOs represent the agriculture of the past, not the agriculture of the future.

I am convinced, based on a variety of sources, that those who are dissatisfied with today’s industrial food system and are searching for alternative make up at least a quarter and possibly a third of American consumers, and their numbers are growing. Over the long run, the potential for this new market is unlimited; it could literally transform the concept of what it means to eat well in America. This new organic/sustainable/local food movement, not CAFOs, is the American farmer’s best hope for the future.

So individual farmers have viable alternatives to pursue, but what should community leaders do? The proponents argue that CAFOs obviously are profitable, at least for the corporate contractors, and if something is profitable, someone is going to do it, regardless of what the local people think. The element of truth in this argument is that if something is profitable then someone will want to do it. However, wanting to do something is different from being allowed to do something. Contrary to popular belief, society does not have to allow something just because someone thinks it would be profitable. For example, robbers obviously consider robbery to be profitable; that’s why they do it. But society does not allow people to rob, and we put those who insist on robbing in prison. A civilized society doesn’t allow things that are detrimental to the common good, even if those things might be profitable for individuals.

It is yet to be determined, at least in a court of law, that CAFOs are inherently detrimental to the common good. Thus, individual states and communities cannot outlaw CAFOs in their areas of jurisdiction. State and local governments, however, do have the authority to regulate the location and operations of CAFOs, through zoning and health ordinances. The Missouri Court of Appeals, for example, ruled that CAFOs represent a potential risk to public health and upheld the rights of Missouri counties to regulate the location and operation of CAFOs, through local health ordinances. The Court opinion states that counties have “the power to make additional health ordinances to enhance the public health and to prevent the entrance of dangerous diseases into the county.”[3]

The issue of whether CAFOs present potential health risks to rural residents has been resolved; they do.[4] In fact, the American Public Health Association has called for a national moratorium on CAFOs, citing more than 40 references to published reports indicating health concerns related to CAFOs.[5] The only credible disagreements between proponents and opponents of CAFOs center not on whether health risks exist, but rather how to deal with those risks. In some states, state laws have been passed which preempt the rights of county and local governments from implementing zoning or health regulations that are more restrictive than state laws. Regardless of the law, the rights of rural residents to protect themselves from the health and environmental risks associated with CAFOs arise from our fundamental, common sense rights to self-defense and self-determination. State and local governments have a responsibility to protect the health and well-being of their citizens. When state governments fail to accept this responsibility, local governments or health agencies must.

Many people seem to believe that economic interests must always take priority over all other interests because of interstate commerce laws. Admittedly, anything that interferes with interstate commerce, such as restricting business activities that are not restricted in other states, generally has been ruled to be unconstitutional. However, the “commerce clause” of the U.S. Constitution simply gives the United States Congress the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." (Article I, Section 8, Clause 3). State and local governments cannot enact laws that give priority to people over commerce, but only because the right to do so is reserved for the U.S. Congress. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that such state and local laws can be made valid if they are approved by the U.S. Congress. The U.S. Congress also appears to have the authority to allow state and local governments to give priority to public interests over economic interests, if they choose to use their constitutional authority to do so. Perhaps it’s time to call on the U.S. Congress to give priority to the interests of people over profits, not just in the case of CAFOs, but in all similar cases as well.

The initiative for such a change in priority will likely have to come from the local level. The agricultural establishment has far more political power at federal and state levels of government than they have at county or local community levels. Powerful interests virtually dictate all policy administered by USDA and essentially have veto power over agricultural legislation at the state level, through their influence on agricultural legislative committees. Promoters of CAFOs have used their influence with state legislators in attempts to prevent counties from passing local health ordinances affecting CAFOs, in states where they still have the right to do so. In addition, they have supported strong state “right to farm” laws, which prevent local governments from passing any regulations restricting farming practices.

Fortunately, rural people are becoming much better informed on the negative health and environmental consequences of CAFOs. Information is no longer limited to press releases from universities and government agencies but is readily available today to anyone with a computer and a phone line. Rural people also are learning how to organize quickly and to mount effective opposition to CAFOs. And people who have fought CAFOs in one community willingly share their experiences and strategies with those currently fighting the battle in other communities. Rural people increasingly are demanding their basic rights to protect their health and environmental well-being from threats posed by CAFOs or any other so-called economic development strategy.

If any good is to come out of the current CAFO controversies, it may well be that the future leadership of rural America is being developed among those who have become politically empowered through their experiences in opposing CAFOs. Once people proclaim their basic democratic rights of self-defense and self-determination, they become less intimidated by economic and political power. Local control is a cornerstone of democracy.

Proponents argue that local attempts to regulate or restrict the location or operation of CAFOs violate the property rights of landowners. Local governments that restrict the construction or operation of CAFOs are accused of “takings,” meaning the taking the economic value of private property away without compensation. However, something cannot be taken away if it never existed in the first place. The right to private property has never included the right to use property in a way that devalues the properties of one’s neighbors or diminishes the overall quality of life in the community. CAFOs clearly have the capability of doing both, as validated by a recent court judgment awarding more than $4 million to neighbors of Premium Standard’s CAFOs in northern Missouri. One person’s enjoyment of private property cannot diminish the opportunities of others to do likewise. This same principle has guided private property laws from the very beginning.

For example, zoning laws are clearly constitutional, and all zoning laws restrict the use of private property. I own three acres in a residential subdivision outside of Columbia, MO. I can’t subdivide my lot into three one-acre lots, can’t start a business on my property, and can’t let my sewage run into the creek behind my property, no matter how profitable it might be for me to do so. Restrictive zoning and covenants restrict my land use, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Those same zoning rules and covenants prevent my neighbors from doing anything that diminishes my property value or my quality of life. Such laws are not only constitutional they are also both reasonable and necessary in a civilized society where people live in close proximity. In earlier times, farmers could use their land any way they choose when they lived on a sparsely populated frontier because there was no one else around to be adversely affected. Farmers still have the same property rights but they no longer live on the frontier.

Those who claim an absolute “right to farm” are misinterpreting their rights in much the same was as those who claim absolute private property rights. The “right to farm” logically refers to farming, as it existed at the time such rights were granted with allowances for reasonable changes in farming methods and practices over time. However, the “right to farm” was never intended to include the “right to operate an animal factory.” A CAFO is not a farm; it is a factory. Admittedly, all farms smell but CAFOs stink, the difference being the stink of a large CAFO not only creates a nuisance for miles around, but also presents significant risks to human health. All farms have wastes that can pollute streams, but many large CAFOs generate more biological waste than do small cities. Rights to farm were never intended to include factory farms.

In addition, the right to farm was meant to apply to farmers. Under typical CAFO contractual arrangements, the corporations design the buildings, own the animals, provide the feed, decide when to deliver and market the animals, and in general, make all of the important decisions. These corporations obviously are not farmers. Actually, most so-called contract producers are simply investors; they own the buildings but hire someone at minimum wage to do the work. Most contract producers are little more than local front men for the corporations who make it easier for outside investors to be granted the “right to pollute.” They have no inherent “right to farm.”

However, the feeling seems to persist that it’s undemocratic for anyone to support any law or regulation that might limit anyone’s ability to maximize profits, regardless of the reason for doing so. I have been called a communist and accused of being undemocratic because I have openly supported government restrictions of CAFOs. However, nothing is less democratic than denying anyone a voice in shaping public policies, regardless of the economic consequences of such policies. One of the fundamental principles of the democratic belief system is that everyone has an equal right to participate in making the rules by which all in that society are to abide. One of the most fundamental responsibilities of citizenship is to work collectively, through government, for protection of the common good, including the public health and environmental well-being. Individuals who claim the right to participate in the public processes of making rules that protect the public health, environment, and quality of life are exercising their basic democratic rights and responsibilities.

We are at a critical point in time for rural America. Many rural communities today are being asked to sacrifice their future so a few local investors and outside corporate investors can benefit economically from large-scale, confinement animal feeding operations. The most valuable assets many of these rural communities possess are their natural environment and their strong sense of community. Rural communities are still viewed by many people as good places to live and raise families. Most are still places with clean air, clean water, open spaces, scenic landscapes, and opportunities for peace, quiet, and privacy. Most are still places where people have a sense of belonging, friendly places where people know and care about each other, where crime rates are low and a strong sense of safety and security still exists. Such attributes are becoming increasingly scarce in America, and thus are becoming increasingly valuable. It would take a six-figure salary for a city dweller to buy the quality of life that comes with living in a healthy rural community. Some aspects of rural life are truly “priceless.” These precious quality of life attributes represent the future of rural areas, and they may all be lost when a community becomes known as “CAFO friendly.”

As rural areas become polluted and degraded by exploitation, they also are losing their most precious rural resource, the next generation, as their children leave for the cities, where they have better opportunities. In fact, rural parents routinely advise their children to go away to college and get a good education so they won’t have to return to the rural community or farm for a living. Increasingly, rural people are realizing there is no future in turning their communities into dumping grounds for the rest of society – not just for CAFOs, but also for landfills, toxic waste incinerators, and prisons. They just don’t know what else to do. They have been systematically abused for so long they have come to accept the degradation as inevitable.

Current environmental and health regulations are simply inadequate to protect rural areas, as attested to by the repeated and persistently negative health and environmental impacts suffered by rural residents where CAFOs currently operate under those regulations. Federal and state governments are not going to help; they are simply not willing to defy the economic and political power of the agricultural establishment. Regardless, federal and state laws are meant to establish minimum levels of health and environmental protection, not maximum levels. Rural people must stand up for themselves – for their democratic rights of self-defense and self-determination. Rural people must decide for themselves, locally, what needs to be done to protect their health and environment.

Once rural people have reclaimed their right to a healthy and clean environment, they can begin the task of rebuilding an economic, social, and ecological foundation needed for sustainable community development. The future of rural America is in the land and the imagination, creativity, work ethic, and honesty of the people of rural communities, not in the cunning and conniving of outside corporate investors. Now is the time to reclaim rural America from corporate agriculture. Now is the time for rural people to invest their time, their energy, their intellect, their money, and their integrity in restoring the health and productivity of their land and their natural environment. Now is the time for local people to demand their rights of self-defense and self-determination and to take control their own destiny.

End Notes:

[i] Prepared for presentation at Clean Water Week, sponsored by the Clean Water Network, Washington DC, February 25, 2007.

[ii] John Ikerd is Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO – USA; author of, Sustainable Capitalism: A Matter of Common Sense, http://www.kpbooks.com; E-mail: JEIkerd@centurytel.net; web site: http://www.ssu.missouri.edu/faculty/jikerd.