Why
Farmers Need to Speak Out Against War
1)
America’s
rural communities have taken the hardest toll in both Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the Carsey Institute at the
University of New Hampshire, “the death rate for rural soldiers is 60% higher
than the death rate for those soldiers from cities and suburbs.”
2)
We are losing our farmers. There
are eight times as many farmers in the US over the age of 65 as there are under
the age of 35. This is a national crisis
that threatens our very ability to feed ourselves, effecting our quality of
life and security of our nation.
3)
Our veterans are coming back to our same communities. These
communities, already lacking in the employment opportunities for its young
families, are also lacking in the much needed medical and mental health
services. “Our rural members”, says Paul Rieckoff, President of Iraq and
Afghan Veterans of America, “are having the hardest time.”
4)
The current wars are taking a huge toll on our
national treasury. While
taxpayer dollars still fund large farm subsidies - done primarily for the
benefit of the large multi-national food processors - monies needed for
conservation, credit needed for the family farmers, wages needed for the farm
worker and help and training needed for the new and start-up farmer are all lacking.
5)
Since the beginning of the latest Gulf War oil
prices have more than tripled. While oil company profits and those of all
military related industries have skyrocketed, the American farmer has once
again paid his undue share of this unprecedented cost of fuel.
6)
While the US farmer pays his unfair toll for
these wars, so too do the farmers of the countries where the wars are fought. Afghani
farmers have turned to opium as the only viable crop in a countryside ravaged
by several decades of international forces doing battle in their homeland. The fertile farmland of the Tigris-Euphrates
River has been seriously damaged and many of the farm families who haven’t lost
members directly to the war have lost their farms to ethnic cleansing.
7)
We farmers are on the front lines of both
global wars and global warming. Higher
temperatures, draughts, and erratic weather patterns are hitting us hard
already. Going to war with
fossil fuels, for fossil fuel is giving our farms a one-two punch while benefiting the very
forces that threaten us.
8)
Control of land, water and food production will
become important issues in preventing new wars. As the
world’s population continues to grow and resources continue to shrink the issue
of food sovereignty – the right for all people to decide what they eat and to
ensure that agriculture in their community is fair and healthy for all – will
be key to a peaceful world.
9)
We can change things by changing the way we farm. By
creating healthier and more diverse farming systems, with food, fuel and fiber grown
closer to where it is consumed, we can rebuild our rural economies, create work
for our returning soldiers, promote national security, rebuild our
democracy, improve America’s economic
and physical health and do more for global warming than any other single change
by any other industry.
10)
We can create a progressive voice for
agriculture. By bringing together America’s family
farmers, its organic farmers, the farm workers, the new generation of urban gardeners
and farmers, along with consumers who demand a safe and just food system we can
change the voice of American agriculture.
11)
Farmers are the biggest workforce in the world. There
are more farmers in the world than there are believers of any one religion or followers
of any one political dogma. Together
with the fishers and the foresters we feed the world, and manage most of its
land and water. We can come together in
groups like Terra Madre and La Via Campesina that can become powerful,
democratic forces in the coming decades.
12) A
connection to the land is essential to being peaceful people. American writers from Thoreau, Emerson and
Whitman, to Scott Nearing and Wendell Berry have shown us that our connection
to the land is essential to our spirit as a nation. Generations of Amish, Mennonites and others
have chosen farming as part of a simpler life, without need or capacity for
violence. And young Americans growing up
during the War in Vietnam pushed organic farming as the ultimate statement against
a country that had lost its moral center of gravity. More
than ever, in a shrinking world, we need to look at how we farm, how we eat,
and how we live as both means and ends in our search for a more peaceful and
just world.
Michael
O’Gorman Co-Chair, Farms Not Arms
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