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Politics and ag



The recent postings about politics are showing our personal biases. 
To hash those out fully would take quite a lot of time, and probably 
shouldn't happen on sanet.

Politically, I would like to offer that I have been involved in leftist 
political and economic ventures and adventures.  What I have found 
working for organic farms, collectives, cooperatives and the like, is 
that they do not receive the same governmental support that other more 
"legitimate" activities do.  Somewhere in downtown Sacramento is a 
building which says it contains the offices of the "Department of 
Corporations."  Where is the Department of Collectives?  Why doesn't the 
SBA having a training program for coops/collectives?  Why doesn't 
California even have a business organization category for them?  I and 
others have found these sorts of businesses and activities personally and 
economically empowering.  But that empowerment is, I think, 
dangerous to the government.

To bring this back to ag . . . 

I am researching CA's Central Valley in a follow-up to Goldschmidt's, 
MacCannell/White's, et al.'s work on the structure of ag and its effects 
on the socio-economic status of ag towns.  My results thus far support 
Goldschmidt, i.e. that a town with larger farms and concentrated 
ownership has a lower standard of living than a town with many 
small-to-mid-sized farms.  When I first skimmed Avery and Avery's report, 
I had just finished correlating poverty and housing stats.  It struck me 
that for them to ignore so blithely that people are hungry, poor 
and  ill-housed because of concentration of power in agriculture is  
conservative arrogance.

Concentration of power in agriculture has been made possible in California 
with governmental support, i.e. with politics.  The picture would be very 
different had the 
Chinese been allowed to own property, had farmworkers not been beaten by 
police, had farmers paid for constructing all of the irrigation canals, 
and on and on.  There is money in both government and agriculture, so 
those who have power in or because of these realms try to maintain 
the status quo, which is conservatism.

Sustainable agriculture, as many more knowledgeable than myself have 
pointed out, includes not only the physical ecology of the farm but also 
the social relations in which food and fiber are produced.  Because 
conservative politics wants to maintain social inequities, I work for 
progressive (leftist) political aims as part of my work with sustainable 
ag.  Increased chemical use and exploitation of biotech will increase the 
wealth and influence of those already in power, leading to further 
socio-economic inequities.  Thus, I oppose them not only because they are 
poor ideas ecologically, but also because they are regressive 
politically.

I choose to engage items like this recent paper politically as well 
as socially, economically, ecologically, or whatever.  It is a personal 
choice, but for me, a more honest approach.

Ciao
Bill Blake
wiblake@ucdavis.edu