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One of the main problems with farming in North America, particularly the USA, is political ideology.
Farmers are encouraged to be increasingly competitive with each other, and with big agro business.
They are encouraged to be strictly independent operators, free enterprise businesses. That is the
problem.
The system is so politically rigid and blasts so fiercely at any deviation from its ideas as to how
everything MUST be done, that there are no alternatives allowed in thought or action. This has
become increasingly worse in the past 30 plus years.
The same problem is now plaguing Washington in other areas of economic activity. We see the
results of that rigid, ideological, approach, every day in the news. Where too are the billions to
bail out the farming industry ?
First plan of attack..............
The constitution demands that farmers, who have more to do with the "general welfare" of "we the people"
get first dibs on any federal money, long before for profit mega corporation manufacturers get a hearing
in DC as to federal handouts. It's the law, not an option. The people and their good must come first, according
to the preamble of the constitution. Any farmer can make a case for precedence in getting federal money
at handout and bailout time. Simply by referring to the preamble. A class action suit by farmers to gain
those billions, precedent to large corporations, is arguable, and long past due. Every farmer knows how
hard it is in America the way that governance as treated the independent farm operator, owner. It is worse
than tough and yet the constitutional challenge remains to be made as billions, trillions in fact, are
allocated to big for profit corporations that do not produce food, and do not directly meet the constitutional
criterion for precedence in government action. Farmers as a class of legal entity should have constitutional
precedence over and above GM, Ford, Chrysler and so forth. So what has gone wrong ? In that case it is
time for farmers to hire on some good constitutional lawyers to put government back in its place, in proper
relation to "we the people", not "we the big corporations". A dust bowl is not an option but even that
could happen if nothing is done. That can be avoided and solved with federal money.
Now, second plan of attack.......
Back to that ideological bind. Farmers have been discouraged from forming collectives, to decrease the
amount of investment needed for quality and productivity. Collectives are "communist" or at best 'socialist"
and America wants none of that. Well, actually that closed mindedness is the problem. You have to break
with Washington's ideological screws being tightened on thinking and action, to do things in more
pragmatic and effective ways. It's not only about money, but it is about the quality of product and quality
of life, necessitating change. Communal farming, collectivized farming, real sharing of knowledge, and
the means of production is a way out of increasing pressure to give it up and let big agro business
take over, and it is also good environmental and conservation sense. Big business tends to ignore the
environmental issues, when it comes to maximizing profits. The smaller operators tend to have more
traditional sensitivity, even if less technically progressive savvy, but even the latter can be more readily
gained by a communal or collective farming approach. Certainly more bang for the hard pressed buck.
The freedom to pursue non free enterprise, less narrowly capitalistic modes of function, and to
organize more communally and collectively is a constitutional right that has been denied to the
American farmer for far too long. It is time to reclaim that inalienable right.
So we have a two pronged attack plan against the DC strangle hold on farming.
Yes it can change, but it has to change at the grass roots. It has to come from the grass roots farming
communities, and the organizing of farmers into a political force, against the Washington dictatorship,
which is leading American farming into ruin and disregarding the long term general welfare of "we the
people" in favor of "we the big corporations".
Cheers.
It's time for a farming revolution in America.
Robert Morpheal
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