Monday, May 11, 2015

IA County Supervisors Polled... Majority Want More Local Control on CAFOs

Dickinson County supervisors over in NW Iowa are getting taunted by corporations wanting to build CAFOs. This is Iowa Great Lakes region, where people come to get away and enjoy the outdoors. They aren't wanting to take any chances with tons of fermenting hog manure and toxic ambient air.


So they polled the rest of the state's supervisors. Here in Winneshiek, and surely across the state, it spurred some important discussion.

And the results are in. Many supervisors responded. The majority are in favor of "more local control for counties to preserve and protect the environmental resources within their county".

We don't think it's wise to wait until our state legislators decide we deserve local control over our agriculture future and resource protection. We the People decide in a real democracy, not Corporate Ag and the politicians in their pocket.

Thanks Dickinson County for getting the ball rolling!






5 comments:

  1. Corporate agriculture spends money to energize the electorate. Advocates of community rights also wish to persuade the electorate. The voting majority then selects the state legislators. So which argument will be more persuasive, corporate or community rights?

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  2. We believe corporations should have no place influencing the electoral process with money as they currently and effectively are. But since they're allowed to do so, we're left with politicians and state agencies that wish to preempt local decision-making when it interferes with their profits.

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  3. It is not just state farm agencies such as Wisconsin’s DATCP that support CAFOs. It is necessary to go higher up the food chain to the USDA. Flooding the farm fields is the trickle down of federal farm subsidies such as the farm bills beginning in 1933.
    He who pays the piper calls the tune. The topdown control of farming negates community rights. Unless you wish to incur the interminable labors of Sisyphus, you will slay the farm bill, the USDA, and the Wisconsin DATCP.

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  4. We agree that topdown control of farming (and other industries) negates community rights. Community rights is saying loud and clear that topdown control is not just. We have a right to make the decisions that greatly affect us here where we live. We reject topdown control of our local governments. Governments are charged with protecting rights. And we believe in the right of communities to self-govern and the right of natural ecosytems to survive and flourish. We do not believe in rights of a corporate charter business to pollute and prosper anywhere they like, or rights to destroy natural communities in order to increase profit. Our proposed ordinance says these things.

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  5. Do you agree about slaying the farm bill, the USDA, and the Wisconsin DATCP? The reality today is that power is concentrated in Washington and Madison. Jefferson’s call for revolution against that power structure in each generation has been ignored. The elders that have brought us to this day have been missing in action. It is time for a young and vigorous generation with nothing to lose to tear down the empire.

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