http://www.canbyherald.com/CANOpinion1.shtml
Protect families against factory farms
By Kendra Kimbirauskas
When it comes to agriculture, Oregon is unlike
other places in the United States. We have a robust rural economy with
over 40,000 farms and the overwhelming majority are still family-owned
and operated. That’s not the case elsewhere — in Iowa many rural
communities are now ghost towns and in North Dakota the state has a
media campaign to keep kids from leaving the farm.
Because our diverse agricultural economy has
historically been comprised of traditional family farms, our rural
counties are at risk of becoming “colonized” by corporate factory farms
looking to cut costs by skirting rules that protect public health and
the environment. Oregon laws, established to protect a farmer’s right
to farm, are being taken advantage of by large industrial farming
operations that are looking for a state with little or no regulation to
set up shop.
Two weeks ago, the residents of South Oak Grove
Road in Canby —who traditionally enjoy a quiet summer on their rural
road working in the garden, riding horses and tending to livestock had
a rude awakening. They discovered that a Washington man, working with
the California-based Foster Farms chicken company, was proposing to
build a factory farm that would raise 1.5 million chickens a year on a
marshy piece of land in the middle of their community.
Factory farms, like the one proposed for South Oak
Grove Road house hundreds of thousands of chickens in factory-style
buildings. They profit by shifting their costs to the surrounding
community, taxpayers, and our environment. And even though these
facilities generate as much, if not more, pollution as other
industries, they are considered “agriculture” and do not have to comply
with the same rules.
In Oregon, the Department of Agriculture (ODA) is
responsible for both promoting agriculture and regulating it. The
result is that the department is welcoming large out-of-state
agribusiness with little consideration for the communities that are
forced to live next to these corporate factory farms.
On June 28, more 75 Canby residents turned out to a
public meeting hosted by the ODA on the proposed Foster Farms
operation, stating their opposition and citing a variety of reasons,
including:
• Surface water pollution and well contamination
because the operation would be built in an area that is wet eight
months out of the year;
• Degradation of air quality because factory
chicken farms release large amounts of toxic gases such as ammonia
which are harmful to human health;
• Decrease in value of surrounding property and loss of rural quality of life;
• And, damage to roads that are not suitable for industrial truck traffic.
Factory farms have tremendous potential to pollute
the air and water and ruin the quality of lives for rural residents.
Yet, across the state, community members are facing roadblocks from the
ODA as the agency works to promote out of state, corporate agribusiness
rather than defending the rights of family farmers and rural residents
from the pollution that these operations generate.
Proponents of factory farms like to say that only
urban residents have concerns about factory agricultural operations
because “they just don’t understand farming.” But the reality is that
the growing number of voices that oppose factory farms are those of
multigenerational family farmers and lifelong rural residents
throughout Oregon.
Unlike traditional farmers, corporate factory farms
do not support the local economy, they degrade the air and water, and
they negatively impact the quality of life of the communities they move
into. It is imperative that our elected officials and state agencies
stand up for rural residents by requiring that industrial factory farms
follow the same rules as any other polluting industry.
Our elected officials and our state agencies can
start by taking a stand for family farmers and the citizens of South
Oak Grove Road in Canby. The ODA should deny Foster Farms a permit
because its chicken factory would devastate a quiet agrarian community,
contaminate the water, pollute the air, and spoil the quality of life
that these residents have enjoyed for decades.
Kendra Kimbirauskas is co-president of Friends
of Family Farmers (FOFF). FOFF is an all-volunteer citizens group
working to protect and promote socially responsible agriculture in
Oregon. Through education and advocacy, FOFF promotes family farming
and healthy sustainable, rural communities. Visit:
www.friendsoffamilyfarmers.org or contact Kimbirauskas at
Kendra@friendsoffamilyfarmers.org.
