|
The Farm Bureau is particularly vociferous about animal rights. Jim Mason, author of the book Animal Factories, says, "AFBF in many farm states has a policy of routinely opposing any and all new pro-animal legislation--no matter how irrelevant it is to agricultural interests."
AFBF has been a staunch opponent of wolf reintroductions, describing them as "overzealous regulation by the government." The group wants to rewrite the Endangered Species Act to make any protection voluntary or subject to a strict formula of cost-benefit analysis. Stallman cites as a model the Fort Hood military reservation in Texas, where ranchers faced with the loss of grazing rights because of the endangered black-capped vireo and golden-cheeked warbler banded together and trapped the cowbirds that were interfering with breeding. "They had a recovery through an integrated management plan that achieved something without command and control," says Stallman.
George Naylor, president of the National Family Farm Coalition, says that many farmers share the view that "when the government is involved, things always get screwed up." That has helped shore up support for free-market "Freedom to Farm" legislation, such as the farm bill passed in 1996. But Naylor says the bill has "eliminated the floor under farm prices" while providing windfall bargain rates for large chicken, cattle and pork producers to buy the corn and soybeans they feed to their intensively managed livestock.
Ironically, Naylor says, the resulting farm crisis has meant that AFBF has to support the institutionalizing of government handouts to farmers. Without such financial aid from taxpayers, the whole system would collapse, he adds. "It's a vicious circle," says Naylor, and one likely to result in the end of family farming as we know it. From the looks of it, that might suit the American Farm Bureau Federation just fine.
|
|
