Bill Maske Dares To Take On Corporate Ag in Iowa
U.S. Representative Tom Latham, from Iowa’s 4th district, likes to adopt a pose of protecting rural communities when he’s opposing environmental regulation. Latham recently commented, for instance, that requirements to measure emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas, from manure management systems “would drive up costs for farmers” in a way that’s totally unfair.
What’s the image you get of Congressman Latham? You picture him out in a cornfield, next to a sun-beaten old farmer and a red tractor, and the farmer’s wife sitting down at a picnic table under a willow tree, offering pie on a red-checked table cloth as the laundry dries on a clothesline behind her.
How wholesome is that? So wholesome that it’s completely out of touch with the farmers Latham is actually associating himself with. Family farmers have long since been driven out of business throughout most of Tom Latham’s district, not because of environmental regulations to keep Iowa’s air and water clean, but because of legislation Tom Latham has worked to maintain, legislation that benefits big corporate agriculture while squeezing small family farmers out of business.
In the 2010 congressional elections, Representative Latham’s defense of corporate ag is being challenged by Democrat Bill Maske. Maske isn’t afraid to defend family farms against the lobbyists of big agribusiness. Maske aims true with his diagnosis of the real threat to small Iowa communities:
“Modern equipment and technology have made farming a thing of the past unless you were fortunate enough to inherit the farm or you have become an employee of a corporate farm. We need an agricultural policy that supports and sustains our family farmers. We also need an agricultural policy that provides opportunity for young men and women to return to the farm.
We must halt the rise of corporate farms. We have seen all too clearly the destructive force of an unbridled corporate America. Our small towns and small businesses have all but vanished due to the impact of large corporations and big business. If we do not act now, farming will only occur as a feudal enterprise. This all has huge ramifications for our land, environment, and agrarian way of life.”
