Frequently, I hear two types of news related to food. One item reports that agricultural giants are using their market power to further industrialize production of crops and animals. The other item reports that farmers, consumers and small businesses are attempting to build alternative food supply chains because they believe the industrial model is damaging to health, food safety, rural communities, workers and the environment. Are these two parts of our food system on a collision course? Is it necessary that one must win and the other lose?

If Oklahoma's Attorney General, Drew Edmondson, were a rodeo cowboy you could say that on Monday, October 20, 2008 he drew a real rank bull. Oklahoma along with 12 other states and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit to block JBS, a Brazilian company, from buying National Beef, Inc. the fourth largest U.S. beef packer.  JBS, the largest meat packer in the world, bought Swift, the number three U.S. packer in 2007. The purchase of National Beef would make JBS the largest U.S. packer, bigger than Tyson and Cargill.  The three companies would control more than 85% of the U.S. beef market, with JBS controling 35%, Tyson 25 - 30% and Cargill 20-25%. In a manner of speaking, Edmondson and the other A.G.'s from cowboy states are attempting to tame the biggest baddest bull on the planet.  In keeping with the courage of lengendary Oklahoma bull riders like Jim Shoulders and Lane Frost, it is time for Drew to cowboy up!

There is a great divide between rural and urban.  Wind energy is the latest issue to expose this gap.  Urban dwellers see wind energy as a solution to high energy prices and a clean alternative to fossil fuels.  Rural folk see wind energy as another thing city folk are going to try to take without paying for.  They are both right, but there is much more to it than that.

Rural Oklahoma today looks much different than it did when I was growing up there in the late 70's and early 80's. Then it was a community of farmers -- small businessmen who knew how to manage the naturally variable process of growing things.  Most of them are gone now and their kids moved away.  The ones who still farm do so in a way that is hardly recognizable.  No one seems to see any future in it, but I see a huge opportunity.    

The U.S. Constitution was written by and for independent farmers who knew how to manage the naturally variable process of growing things.  Industrialization of agriculture replaced most U.S. farmers with low-skill, low-wage laborers and top-down corporate/government management.  Unfortunately, neither the laborers nor the managers know how to farm.  They are unprepared to respond to changes in the climate, energy markets and food markets which have all become very variable.  We need people who are skilled at managing the naturally variable process of growing things.  We need farmers.  And we need them now.