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Local Community Organizing The Land Stewardship Project is a major player in promoting and protecting township and community rights. We have helped rural citizens organize and develop planning and zoning that benefits their communities far into the future. Good planning and zoning not only protects a community’s environmental health and quality of life, it can also help lay the groundwork for economically sustainable development. Such proactive initiatives on the part of citizens have become particularly critical in recent years as agribusiness interests attempt to build large-scale industrial livestock operations in rural communities, despite numerous risks and local opposition. LSP has also worked at the Minnesota Legislature to ensure citizens maintain the right to determine the nature of future development in their community via local control. For more information on LSP’s local community organizing, contact LSP’s Policy and Organizing Program at 612-722-6377.
Dodge County’s Landmark Battle The proposed facility, which was backed by a New Jersey investor, would have consisted of 3,000-animal units, which is equivalent to 2,143 mature dairy cows. At the time, the Dodge County facility would have been the largest dairy in Minnesota (more than 70 percent of Minnesota’s dairy operations are under 200 cows). Because of concerns that such an unprecedented facility would have major negative impacts on the environment as well as property values, rural residents in the area resisted its construction from the beginning. But the citizens soon learned this proposal had larger implications. The mega-dairy was seen by corporate agriculture interests as key in the fight to undermine local government control and clear the way for expansion of large-scale factory livestock operations throughout the Minnesota. But thanks to the help of the Land Stewardship Project, citizens in Dodge County’s Ashland and Ripley townships were able to stand up for their rights and lay the groundwork for sustainable development in their community. In October 2002, residents asked LSP for help. An LSP organizer met with the citizens and provided information on their rights as a township and what they could do to stop unwanted development. Both townships put in place interim ordinances limiting development until they could institute permanent planning and zoning rules. Over the years, the committed group of citizens did research, wrote letters to editors of local newspapers, talked on the telephone, mounted petition drives and attended lots of meetings: county board meetings, township meetings and informal meetings around kitchen tables. They also staged a “Get out of Dodge” protest when powerful agribusiness interests came to the county to tour the proposed site. Such actions were not popular amongst promoters of industrialized, large-scale agriculture. The mega-dairy’s proposers responded with lawsuits, support of an annexation of a town and outside political pressure to force the project into the community. The Dodge County mega-dairy fight became the focus of an intense media campaign that attempted to discredit the rural residents in Ashland and Ripley townships. At one point, a nationally-recognized spokesperson for industrial agriculture launched an e-mail harassment campaign against one of the local Dodge County residents active in the fight. Friends of large-scale agribusiness at the Minnesota Capitol even proposed legislation that would benefit operations such as the one planned for Dodge County. Perhaps the tensest time came in October 2003, when roughly 200 people squeezed into a community center during a regularly-scheduled meeting of the Ripley Township board. Only around 35 of those people were actually township residents; the rest were representatives of agribusinesses and commodity groups. Also attending was an official from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, who had publicly supported the mega-dairy. These outside interests were there to intimidate the township board into allowing the dairy to be built. Some local township citizens had to sit on the floor while representatives from Monsanto’s corporate headquarters in St. Louis sat comfortably. The citizens also had to put up with a different kind of harassment. Many of them were farmers who had lived their entire lives in the area, and yet they, and LSP, were labeled as “anti-livestock agriculture” by commodity groups such as the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association. “We are absolutely not against livestock,” says local resident Shirley Bowman. “We raise corn and beans and we have to have a place to sell our crop for feed, but this kind of development is not good for our community in general and it’s not good for family farmers.” Despite the backing of some very powerful interests, in the fall of 2006 the mega-dairy’s proposers announced they were withdrawing the project. In the end, the citizens of Ashland and Ripley townships stuck together, worked with LSP and showed how strong local democracy can create a bright future for a community. And their involvement in developing a positive future for their community has led these citizens to take a wider view of food and farming systems as well. They’ve continued to strive for healthy land and healthy communities by being involved in other aspects of LSP’s state and federal policy work.
Action Alerts • March 21, 2007: Sustainable & Organic Ag Legislative Package is Funded in the Minnesota Senate; Call Today to Make Sure it is Funded in the House. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/alerts/07/newsr_070321.htm • February 28, 2007: Action Needed to Make Minnesota a National Leader in Sustainable & Organic Agriculture. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/alerts/07/newsr_070228.htm
State Capitol Updates • April 6, 2007: LSP State Capitol Update. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/07/newsr_070406.htm • March 18, 2007: LSP State Capitol Update. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/07/newsr_070318.htm
Press Releases • September 21, 2006: 2006 Edition of MN Township Zoning Guide Now Available. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/06/newsr_060921.htm • August 30, 2006: Investigations Show Minn. Farm & Food Coalition Ads on WCCO Misleading. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/06/newsr_060830.htm • August 15, 2006: Ripley Township Prevails in Mega-Dairy’s Legal Challenge. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/06/newsr_060816.htm • February 28, 2006: Majority in Claremont Oppose City Annexation of Rural Mega-Dairy Site. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/06/newsr_060228.htm
Articles, Commentaries & Podcasts • “What’s ahead for LSP at the 2007 session of the Minnesota Legislature.” Winter 2007 Land Stewardship Letter. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/news-lsl.html • “Court backs Ripley Township in battle against proposed mega-dairy” appeared in the Autumn 2006 Land Stewardship Letter. It describes a District Court ruling that supports a Minnesota’s township’s right to create a planning and zoning ordinance that bans certain sizes of livestock operations. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/news-lsl.html • "Some question townships' power over agriculture development" is a story broadcast on March 3, 2006, by Minnesota Public Radio. It describes the Land Stewardship Project's efforts to preserve the right of townships to regulate large-scale livestock operations. http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/02/28/livestockfriendly • Frances Moore Lappé's talk at a special LSP fundraiser was broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio's Midday program on Nov. 22, 2005. She spoke about her new book, Democracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/programs/midday/listings/md20051121.shtml#2 • "Doug Grow: Puny Township 1, Big Ag 0" is a column written by Doug Grow in the June 11, 2005, edition of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It describes the efforts of residents of Minnesota's Ripley Township to prevent the construction of a mega-dairy in the community. It also describes how the residents and LSP have been attacked for speaking out on this issue. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/itn/05/050611.htm • "Fighting for Local Control" is a New York Times editorial that ran on Dec. 2, 2004. It calls Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty's Livestock Advisory Task Force recommendations "a blueprint for the destruction of family farming in Minnesota." Among other things, the Governor’s Task Force called for a weakening of local control. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/04/itn_041203.html • "A community takes control of its future” is an article that appeared in the July/Aug./Sept. 2003 Land Stewardship Letter on one township’s fight against a mega-dairy. http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/news-lsl.html
Resources & Links • Creating a Bright Future for Livestock Farmers in Minnesota is a special report produced by the Citizen Task Force on Livestock Farmers & Rural Communities. The Citizen Task Force was a unique collaboration between four Minnesota farm groups: Minnesota Farmers Union, Minnesota National Farmers Organization, the Land Stewardship Project and the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota. The Citizen Task Force report’s recommendations focus on ways to increase the number and profitability of Minnesota livestock farmers in ways that benefit rural communities. One of its key recommendations is that rural communities retain the right of local control. See http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pdf/citiz_task_report.pdf to download a pdf version of this 26-page report. • Democracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life is a book by Frances Moore Lappé that exposes the threat of thin democracy, reframes the meaning of democracy and provides what is needed to get on with creating a real one. http://www.democracysedge.org
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