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Family farms and ranches
By ruin of farmers and rural communities, by erosion, pollution, and various kinds of industrial and urban development, we have ominously degraded and reduced the long-term food-producing capacity of our country.
– Wendell Berry, Citizenship Papers
One of our core beliefs at Northern Plains is our belief that family-based farming and ranching are good for Montana’s economy, our environment, and our rural communities. Montana is a better place when family farms and ranches are thriving.
Agriculture can be sustainable
For agriculture to be viable over the long term requires that it be sustainable. Dr. Charles Benbrook, an agricultural economist and chief scientist at the Organic Center in Oregon, defines sustainable agriculture as a food system that:
- Provides a reasonable rate of return to farmers, to sustain farm families, agricultural infrastructure, and rural communities.
- Assures a reasonable rate of return to public and private providers of farm inputs (seeds, fertilizers, etc.), information, services, and technology.
- Preserves and regenerates soil, water, and biological resources upon which farming depends, and avoids adverse impacts on the natural environment.
- Increases productivity and per-acre yields at least in step with the growth in demand.
- Adheres to social norms and expectations of fairness, equity, compliance with regulations, food safety, and ethical treatment of workers, animals, and other creatures sharing agricultural landscapes.
Biodiesel
Oilseed biodiesel
A homegrown alternative
Northern Plains seeks to create a sustainable, decentralized biodiesel industry in Montana, building broad rural prosperity by developing opportunities for farmers, ranchers and small businesses to refine Montana-grown oilseed crops into biodiesel for on-farm use.
We support locally owned clean energy alternatives to dirty fossil fuels. Biodiesel is a clean, renewable fuel that can be produced using Montana-grown oilseed crops, recycled cooking oils, or rendered animal fats.
Farm and ranch operators can use biodiesel made from homegrown crops like camelina, canola, or safflower, which perform well in rotation with the small grains (wheat or barley) commonly raised in Montana.
Biodiesel can be used in any diesel engine without modification (except that the superior cleaning ability of biodiesel might necessitate a couple of fuel filter changes early on). It can be used in its pure form (called B100) or as a blend with petroleum-based diesel at any ratio. The most common blend is 20% biodiesel, 80% petro-diesel (B20). Biodiesel provides similar horsepower and fuel economy compared with petro-diesel, with superior lubricity to reduce wear and tear on the engine.
A byproduct of biodiesel production is a high-protein feed supplement for livestock, about 27 tons of which could feed 300 cows from December through February. A rancher or farmer could produce biodiesel fuel to run farm equipment and meal to feed cattle.
Alternating small-grain crops with oilseeds provides on-farm conservation benefits, reduces the need for expensive fossil fuel products, and enhances productivity and profitability.
Mobile biodiesel processing
Northern Plains supports efforts to develop a viable mobile, custom biodiesel processing unit that can take the equipment to the farmstead and make fuel and livestock feed for farms and ranches.
Northern Plains members who have experience with biodiesel, farming, and small-business management, along with marketing graduate students at Montana State University-Billings have developed a business plan that will make biodiesel affordable and easily accessible for those farmers and ranchers who want clean fuel, energy independence, and high quality feed for Montana livestock.
Landowner rights
Northern Plains works to protect farms and ranches, and the natural resource base upon which they depend, from damage by irresponsible fossil fuel development activities, including energy infrastructure projects like pipelines and railroads. Family farms and ranches bear much of the impact of such facilities, especially when facing condemnation through a privately-held right of eminent domain or when the mineral rights beneath their property are leased by state or federal government to energy companies.
For more information, see Landowner Rights under “The Issues.”
Local foods
Buying local foods boosts local economy
Northern Plains members are focused on local foods because Montanans spend $3 billion each year on food and more than 90% of the food products sold in Montana now come from outside the state or outside the country. If Montanans were to consume only 1% more locally produced food, we would keep nearly $30 million in our state. This would translate to $110 million because each purchase of locally produced food multiplies into additional purchases, providing local jobs, and promoting locally owned businesses, thus resulting in community prosperity.
Every time we as consumers spend money, we are determining the kind of local economy we would like to have. Our votes as consumers – especially organized consumers – are easily as powerful as any election ballot we will ever cast.
Northern Plains members have been working hard to ensure that “one size fits all” federal legislation doesn’t inadvertently shut down Montana’s family farms, farmers’ markets, and small agricultural businesses that are critical to rural economies, nutritional well-being, and Montana’s agricultural heritage. They wrote letters, sent e-mails, made phone calls, and generated press asking Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana) to carry his common-sense amendments to the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. Montanans know that small operations don’t need to same levels of costly regulation appropriate for international corporations.
Members of Sleeping Giant Citizens Council, Northern Plains’ Helena-area affiliate, are campaigning for healthier, local food in school meals. They’ve built a coalition of parents, teachers, public health employees and interested citizens; met multiple times with Helena’s school food service director, and held public events to support creation of a farm-to-school program in Helena. Affiliate Dawson Resource Council in Glendive is also active in the local foods movement.
Affiliates Yellowstone Valley Citizens Council and Bull Mountain Land Alliance operate a community food-buying club in Billings, giving consumers a way to purchase foods directly from the farmers and ranchers who produce it.
For more information
Visit Yellowstone Valley Citizens Council’s website for its Local Food Buying Club.
Livestock issues
Restoring competition to the meatpacking industry
In recent years unfair practices and captive supplies have plagued the meatpacking industry. Four giant meatpacking corporations control over 80% of the U.S. livestock market. This shared monopoly allows meatpackers to use “captive supplies” and other unfair practices to exploit both independent producers and the American consumer. Captive supplies are cattle that meatpackers either own or control through secret forward contracts. The livestock are “captive” because they are tied to one packer and not subject to normal supply and demand market forces, and these captive supplies have proven to depress market prices.
The monopolists that control this dysfunctional marketplace take advantage of honest, hard-working family farmers and ranchers by setting these fixed prices. Without a fair, competitive marketplace or a level playing field, independent family farmers and ranchers have limited opportunities to make a living, and that same food industry charges consumers prices that are way out of line in relation to what is paid to the people who produce that food.
Northern Plains advocates for fair and open markets that give independent family farmers and ranchers an opportunity to earn a fair price for their cattle so they can provide for their families and build stronger communities.
Toward this end, we collaborate with the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC) and other family agriculture groups nationwide to get the federal government to exercise the oversight that is required to bring competition back into the meatpacking industry. Without competition, it is really no marketplace at all.
Mandatory animal ID successfully blocked
Northern Plains Resource Council helped successfully block a mandatory federal National Animal Identification System (NAIS) intended to help authorities quickly identify and track livestock in the event of an animal disease outbreak. Northern Plains’ position was that it was intrusive, cumbersome, misleading, and unnecessary.
In a September 2009 memo, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) directed veterinary service personnel, which included state veterinarians, to start aggressively enrolling people in a “voluntary” program, and also directed them to start assigning Premises Identification Numbers (PINs) to those individuals who did not want to be enrolled in the program. The memo said these people would be “flagged accordingly,” without explaining what that meant. The memo confirmed the fears that many Montana farmers, ranchers, and horse owners had: that the USDA was bent on making this program mandatory.
Northern Plains opposed the mandatory NAIS because it:
- Would shift much of the responsibility for food safety from meatpackers – where most problems occur – to ranchers;
- Would place a heavy financial and bureaucratic burden on producers with no tangible benefit in return;
- Would ignore the value of the existing branding system as an effective trace back system.
In 2009, a Northern Plains member went to Washington, D.C., to testify against the program. Our hard work paid off in February 2010 when U.S. Agriculture Secretary Vilsack announced on a conference call that the program would be dropped.
Country-of-origin-labeling
Country-of-origin labeling is a standard practice for most products, with the notable exception of the food we eat and feed to our families.
Northern Plains, in cooperation with WORC and other farm and ranch groups, had succeeded in gaining passage of country-of-origin labeling in the 2002 Farm Bill. However, years passed without the U.S. Department of Agriculture promulgating the rules necessary to make country-of-origin labeling a reality.
We moved forward with action at the state level in 2005. That year, after two packed hearings, contentious debates in the Legislature, a dozen amendments, six House and three Senate votes, the Montana Country-of-Origin Labeling Act was signed into law. It gave Montana producers of beef, pork, lamb, and poultry the ability to label their products as Made in Montana.
Finally, six years after country-of-origin labeling was originally passed, the USDA finally implemented mandatory country-of-origin labeling of beef, lamb, pork, poultry, fish, fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, and peanuts. However, major U.S. meatpackers have defied Congress’ intent to reserve the USA label for meat exclusively from U.S. animals by applying only a mixed-origin label (e.g., “Product of the United States, Canada, and Mexico”) on many meat products, even meat products from animals exclusively born, raised, and slaughtered in the United States.
Northern Plains continues to support legislation that properly labels the country of origin of the food we eat. Better yet, we encourage consumers to buy as much food as possible from their local, small-scale food producer.
