Hollowed-Out Communities and Dispossessed People Lifted Trump

By JIM VAN DER POL

The Land Stewardship Project and the Minnesota Farmer’s Union are two organizations that hit well above their weight at the legislature here in Minnesota. The LSP makes particularly clear the connection between environment and farming and both groups ceaselessly raise up community and point up the necessity of support of it by the economic system.

Consequently, it is particularly bitter to listen once again to a taxpayer-paid ag economist from the University of Minnesota, one of those land grant universities charged with educating the children of farmers and mechanics, casually dismiss 80% of Minnesota’s dairy farms and advise the legislature against extending them any help whatsoever.

For those of us who have aged in the endless farm battles, it was deja vu all over again. But especially bitter is the realization that there was no objection from the gathered politicians, many of whom represent small towns and communities slated to be victims of corporate and official agriculture. These folks do not represent their constituencies. And this is how corrupt our politics have become.

A new 10,000-cow dairy was built last year two miles from our farm. This is the fourth of a group, each 10,000 cows and all within 10 miles. The fifth is under construction a few miles northwest. When it is complete, there will be 50,000 cows in not much more than two townships. (A township here on the prairie is six miles by six miles)

I was given a courtesy call by the farmer providing the land, about 123 acres, on which the dairy sits. He said I was outside the two mile limit prescribed by his permit—I am not by my arithmetic—but that he was calling anyway hoping I was all right with it. I told him I was not but that there was little I could do about it (See the university and the legislature above) The county feedlot permitting outfit, a captive of agribusiness, did not even require water testing in neighborhood wells. I paid for my own, $400 worth, knowing full well that if that factory with its water draw of millions of gallons drew my well down, I would be laughed out of court if I complained without initial tests to back it up. Four hundred dollars out of my pocket to make up for what a corrupt government does not do. What rights does the community have against these livestock factories? Little to none that I can see.

It is not that these things achieve a better margin than others. They do not and will not beat a good family-run operation, especially if that operation is based on grazing. But they are so much better at getting all the angles in their favor. They make their way in by promising large crops farmers, the ones who generally run the county board of commissioners, good contracts for corn silage, alfalfa silage and a good price for manure. Crops farmers are desperate enough for animal impact on their impoverished soils that they actually buy this stuff, even though most the the fertility value has been removed and dried to provide bedding for the cows.

They use immigrant construction crews and portable concrete mixing systems so that they can move always on to the next project. If immigration were not so occupied with torturing families on our southern border, perhaps they could put some discipline on employers here in the Midwest. Since the company constructs and operates the factory with immigrant labor, it is reasonable to wonder if they are using people with agricultural labor visas to do construction work, work which immigration says should be higher paid. In any case, they are not using citizens in their crews, no matter what their propaganda might say about their boosting the local economy. It would, of course, be a real departure to expect immigration to take a hand in getting some control of employers.

The processing and retail tail end of dairy—think Walmart for instance—has gotten to the size where it can wag the farming dog. It does a family operation no good at all to be better than a 10-thousand-cow dairy factory if the retail simply declares that it will only buy from huge dairies and suspends your bulk truck. No truck—no way to sell your milk. This is happening. It was long in the making. Packers and stockyards and all the other anti-monopoly tools the government has have been rusting away on the shelf for most of my adult life. There is no one to say that the country has a vested interest in a diverse and widespread dairy industry and that the industry will be made to pick up the milk of whatever farm needs the service. Yet, this is just the kind of thing for which government should exist.

And the impact of big money is particularly noticeable on local government, that level that prides itself on being the most responsive to “the people.” The county north of me just rebuilt and upgraded about 35 miles of blacktop county road to heavy concrete pavement. This stretch connects to the interstate highway system thus enabling the milk semis to efficiently haul the product to South Dakota.

So there you have it. The cheapness of immigrant labor is a real boon to the centralizers. Immigrants milk these cows on a temporary basis, work that generations of farmers have done to pay for their farms. Children of those farmers leave the area because there is no work. Carelessness about the environmental impact of such a concentration of livestock. Veterinary services provided by immigrant vets, perhaps well-qualified, but not able to be licensed here. One licensed vet to keep the antibiotics available. No likelihood that any other kind of farm will be able to access any large animal veterinary services in several more decades. Or find a feed mill for that matter.

A German farmer friend pokes fun at his Norwegian counterpart: “Those Norwegians with their oil money. They will blast a hole in a mountain to get a truck through to pick up the milk from three cows!”

I can only chuckle. But the Norwegians are not led by the likes of Trump. We shouldn’t wonder why. The Trump effect comes from generations of hollowed-out communities and dispossessed people. Scratch most Trump voters in the Midwest and you will find someone whose family lost out or quit or was driven from farm and community a generation or two ago, generally to the applause of a government ag economist.

Jim Van Der Pol farms near Kerkhoven, Minn. A collection of his columns, Conversations with the Land, was published by No Bull Press (nobullpressonline.com).

From The Progressive Populist, September 1, 2018

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