Northern Farmer

This next March our township will hold elections for township supervisor. Our township contains a State Park that is a portion of a 5 mile by 10 mile section of woods that existed when settlers first came. The land surrounding this area of woods was maintained as prairie by the burning that the Indians did. The current township supervisor, who has been supervisor for 20 some years, is running for reelection. This man is a lifelong resident of the township and is a descendant of the first settlers in our area back in the 1850s. He is a conventional farmer and an acquaintance. Two of my children help him during his busy times and I am currently renting pasture from him. A couple of my children heard a discussion between him and a seed salesman. Apparently the conversation went something like this:

Current Township Supervisor: “What if weeds start developing resistance to roundup?” (He uses roundup ready corn and soybeans.)
Salesman: “Monsanto will figure something out.”
Current Township Supervisor: “Okay.”

Overall this incumbent township supervisor has a done a good job.

A second candidate is an attorney who is also an acquaintance of our family. This attorney is a candidate because, during the last year, the county approved the building of a hog confinement operation close to his house. I think he would like to prevent such things in the future. He is backed by a number of liberal environmentalist types, even though he himself is a conservative and supports the “R” party. Apparently these liberals won’t even say Republican; it is such a bad word for them. His backing by the liberal elements of the township is prompted by a number of developments that were proposed in the last year. The first proposed development, which was eventually denied by the county, involved construction of a 40 house development directly next to the state park. The second proposed development was the construction of a fireworks warehouse and demonstration center in a gravel pit immediately adjacent to the park. This fireworks warehouse was narrowly stopped due to a technicality, even though the county and township supervisor supported this warehouse. The last proposed development was the building of a hog confinement operation next to the home of this attorney. The building of this hog confinement barn was approved by the township and the county. Apparently people think that this attorney can help stop the building of confinement operations and other unwanted developments.

Yesterday my wife and I went to a reception being held to allow people to talk with this attorney. The reception was held in a historical church building site. One of the church buildings, probably the original church building, was built in 1862. Someone forgot to turn on the heat prior to the reception, so it was a little cold inside. There is also no running water or indoor toilet on site. At this meeting, I suggested that the township should try to find things that will encourage pasture based and authentic agriculture. The answer I was given was to look at the things that Woodbury county, Iowa has done. So today I went to the web to see if I could find information on Woodbury County, Iowa. I found this link:

http://www.woodburyiowa.com/departments/EconomicDevelopment/Land%20Stewardship%20FULL%20TEXT.pdf

This county is giving organic farmers a tax break ($20 per acre), plus the county is required to purchase local organic food from farmers within a 100 mile radius of the Woodbury county courthouse. This document, states that: “In west central Minnesota, which raises 23 percent of the state’s corn and 22 percent of its soybeans, $1 billion is being sucked out of the region annually by a food and farm economy that exports raw commodities and imports finished products from hundreds, sometimes thousands of miles away. It breaks down this way: $150 million is lost by farmers raising food, 600 million is lost through the purchase of outside inputs, and $250 million is lost when consumers buy food produced outside the area.” Ouch!! As a rural society we sure know how to shoot ourselves in the foot, don’t we? Buying local does make a difference.

So now the burning question is, “Which person should I vote for”, the incumbent supervisor who has done a good job over the years, or the newbie who may be willing to encourage something other than the big ag that is so prevalent in my area?

This entry was posted on Monday, February 19th, 2007 at 6:32 pm and is filed under Jim V. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.