Contact: Thom Petersen, Minnesota Farmers Union, 612-860-9462
Paul Sobocinski, Land Stewardship Project, 507-342-2323; 507-430-1509

FARM BROADCASTERS: For audio of Bill Heffernan & Nancy Barsness, contact Brian DeVore at 612-729-6294

3/16/04
WILLMAR, Minn.— Large multinational corporations want to completely dominate the livestock industry, and see local township government in states like Minnesota as a major barrier to reaching that goal, said a leading researcher on corporate consolidation in agriculture Monday. Bill Heffernan, a professor emeritus of rural sociology at the University of Missouri, told more than 200 farmers and local government officials gathered in Willmar that that’s why nationally, agribusiness corporations are working through state legislatures to eliminate as much local control of livestock operations as possible.

“In this country and here in Minnesota you’ve got companies that want to move in and in a sense reap some of the benefits of the local area without paying all the costs, i.e., they mess up the environment, they mess up the social structure of the community and so forth. And so one of the reasons they don’t want the local folks to make the decisions is that they know that they don’t want to cover all the costs,” Heffernan said at a meeting on protecting local control and independent livestock producers. The meeting was sponsored by Minnesota Farmers Union, Minnesota National Farmers Organization and the Land Stewardship Project.

But it’s not inevitable that rural communities be overrun by large industrialized livestock operations, said Nancy Barsness, a Pope County township officer and member of the Minnesota Association of Townships Board of Directors. Barsness talked about how Minnesota townships have used good planning and zoning to guide development.

“I always tell townships to get together with their citizens and have a visioning session where they talk about what do they think their townships going to look like in five years, 10 years, 20 years?” Barsness said. “Is that what you want it to look like? What is it you want it to look like and what are the barriers now stopping it from looking like you want it to, and those are the things you put into a local ordinance, or a plan.”

Paul Sobocinski, a Wabasso, Minn., hog farmer and organizer for the Land Stewardship Project, said there are several proposed bills moving through the current Minnesota Legislature that threaten local township control. He said farmers and local government officials need to contact their Senators and Representatives and let them know that gutting local government is not the way to help independent livestock producers and rural communities.

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Commentary: Q & A with Bill Heffernan: 'There's nothing inevitable about this system…'"

More than 200 farmers and local government officials attended the
"Protecting Township Local Control and Independent Livestock Producers"
meeting on March 15 in Willmar, Minn.