Can rural residents and industrial agriculture resolve their conflicts?

Harold Guither

Rural electric cooperatives have greatly enhanced the standards and quality of living in rural areas over the past 60 years. Many of today's rural residents would not live outside of towns and nearby cities if they did not have electric power, running water, and good roads to get to their jobs away from home.

For farmers who live on the land where they farm, their productivity has been greatly enhanced by electric power, modern machinery, and new technologies for producing crops and livestock.

However, progress carries with it certain conflicts between the modern systems of crop and livestock production, and the rural residents whose main interest is a quiet place to live away from the noise, congestion, and costs of city living.

Many electric cooperatives have worked to bring jobs and employment to rural areas so rural residents can live in the communities they know and in harmony with their neighbors. Now many will be caught in resolving conflicts they would rather not have to face.

Today, one of the most serious conflicts that divides rural residents from farmers, and large farm operators from smaller farmers with more traditional farming systems, is the movement to establish large mega-hog farms. Where many Illinois farmers have traditionally produced a few hundred hogs each year, the new production systems involve thousands of hogs each year and divide the production process between farrowing, growing and finishing the animals.

Recently, a community near the village of Rankin in Vermilion County witnessed a citizens' campaign against a proposed large hog operation. Many of those opposed were not farmers but rural residents, but some farmers near the proposed site also joined in opposition.

Driving along Interstate 74 south of Galesburg, I recently noted signs opposing establishment of a large hog operation, despite the fact that Knox county has been a major pork producing county and includes some of the most progressive leaders in the state.

At the heart of the opposition lies the concerns with potential environmental problems — objectionable odors, potential leakage of lagoons that would pollute nearby streams, and an unfavorable community image.

Pork industry leaders, animal scientists and state government officials recognize these issues and are working to see how they can be resolved. It will not be easy, but many serious problems of the past have also been overcome.

At the heart of the issue is Illinois agriculture as we have known it in the past — a leader among the top five states in corn, soybean, hog production and total agricultural income.

I wonder if corn and soybean farmers realize that without a major pork industry in this state, that part of their market for corn and soybeans would be lost. Although exports are important, domestic feed use

Harold Guither, a native of Bureau County, served on the University of Illinois College of Agriculture faculty for 39 years and retired in 1995 as a professor of agricultural policy. He presently works as secretary-treasurer for the Illinois Society of Professional Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. His latest book, Animal Rights — History and Scope of a Radical Social Movement, will be published later this year by Southern Illinois University Press.

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still exceeds our foreign market. Opposition to expanding pork production units will result in a westward movement of the pork industry away from the more populated states of the traditional corn-soybean belt.

I wonder if the rural residents who work in nearby towns and in various rural industries, some of which depend on agricultural commodities, realize that a prosperous agriculture and a stable farming population provide a tax base for good schools, roads, and other public services and a market for the products and services of retail stores in rural communities.

The best interests of rural residents, large and small farming operations, and the total community will not be solved with a negative "not in my backyard" attitude. The long-run best interests of many of our rural communities in Illinois will come about with dialogue between new enterprises and new industries looking for a site and long-time residents who want to preserve the best features of where they live and work.

There will be no easy solutions and as in many policy debates, compromise can result in some benefits for all concerned without destroying the opportunities for employment and economic development.

Rural electric cooperative members can lead the way or serve as stumbling blocks to progress.

8 ILLINOIS COUNTRY LIVING OCTOBER 1997