MDL Editor Redefines "Local" Agriculture

MDL editor and publisher Jon Hunter shows his big-business stripes in last night's editorial. Ignoring the hopeful message for small farmers carried here yesterday and on his own pages a few nights ago, our man Hunter touts a "growth spurt" for "local agriculture."

But wait -- "local"? Let's look at some phrases straight from the good editor:

• "Perhaps an overall theme to our growth could be the decades-long trend to larger operations. Observers correctly say that larger farms have reduced the number of farmers, but the efficiencies gained by larger operations have boosted productivity to remarkable levels." Fewer farmers means fewer local farmers.
  
• "The Madison Farmers Elevator will handle more than 22 million bushels this year, up from only about 3 million a year twenty years ago. Increased yields have contributed, but the biggest boost has been the increased deliveries from farmers farther away.The investment in the 110-car unit train facilities has paid off tremendously. As small-town elevators have shrunk or closed, Madison has been drawing in business from farther and farther away." Small-town elevators closing, farmers traveling farther to deliver their products -- again, that's a decline in local agriculture.

The editor of our local newspaper reflects what appears to be the persistent mindset of the business community: bigger is better, efficiency and productivity equal success. The raw dollars brought to town by increased farm productivity look good in the ledgers, but what about community? According to Hunter's essay, Madison's economic health has been built on driving ever more farmers out of business and off their land, concentrating land ownership in the hands of a few industrial-sized owners, and crushing the economy of an ever-widening circle of smaller communities.

We may be holding our own economically by importing business from bigger and more distant farms, but the decline of small, diverse farms has to be related to four decades of population stagnation. Fewer farmers means fewer families buying boots and shovels and steak dinners in town, fewer kids in the school district, and fewer people bringing their ideas and spirit to the community.

If Hunter's happy conclusion is correct, "local" agriculture will reach its apotheosis when Stips or the Hutterites or BP Ethanol finally buy up every acre and consolidate the whole county into one big hyper-productive cornfield farmed by remotely controlled GPS-guided tractors. The local economy would ring up great profit... there just wouldn't be any local people left to enjoy it.