corporate farming consequences

["JS M" <jbiggs50@hotmail.com>]

There seems to be some interest lately in the impacts of corporate farming 
and the loss of the “family farm”.  I’ve been thinking about this subject 
for other reasons; I’ve been asked to provide Whitman County with an 
analysis of the proposed Washington State Non-Point Source Pollution Plan.  
It’s a bulky document outlining the state’s plan to reduce non-point source 
pollution as mandated by the Clean Water Act, 1996 version.  O.K., because 
you asked, non-point source pollution is water pollution produced by 
run-off, either caused by rain or by irrigation.  It’s called non-point 
pollution because the other kind (from industries, sewage treatment plants, 
etc.) enters streams at a “point” such as a pipeline.  See how that works?

Anyway, so the state must meet the Clean Water Act, and the Clean Water Act 
mandates addressing non-point pollution.  So, which industry has the state 
identified as the greatest non-point polluter?  Agriculture, of course; and 
in particular, dry land farming such as wheat and barley production.  The 
state has included in its plan some fairly weak proposals for addressing the 
problem.  However, the EPA has mandated doing something about this (they 
enforce the Clean Water Act) and it’s stated in the plan that if these 
weenie proposals don’t do the job, the state will have to legislate a 
solution.  “Legislate” equals ten-ton hammer.  Naturally, the proposals 
won’t work (because they’re unenforceable and because the farming lobby will 
fight to the last man) so we eventually get legislation and heaps of 
rhetoric about squeezing the poor “family farmer”.

Here’s what I was thinking:  The environmental regulatory agencies have a 
really hard time enforcing laws on cultural heroes such as the “family 
farmer”.  Would an unintended consequence of the corporatization of farming 
be the forming of bad-by-definition-corporations that the environmental 
community could aggressively attack?  It’s easier to point at ConAgra and 
say what bad boys they are than it is to point at Farmer Jones and accuse 
him of planting a wheat desert.  Would an unintended consequence of 
corporate farming be a cleaner environment?  After all, corporations have 
greater resources to address environmental clean-up.  Seems to me that folks 
like Exxon didn’t take the environment seriously until they were slapped 
with mega-lawsuits.  Can you imagine the EPA suing Farmer Jones, our 
cultural icon, our national hero?  Could the corporatization of agriculture 
prove to be positive for the environment in the long run?
jm

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