Rur­al Amer­i­ca once had strong com­mu­ni­ties. It would have been very dif­fi­cult for any­one who built a CAFO in a rur­al area in ear­li­er times. It wasn’t social­ly or moral­ly accept­able for one per­son in the com­mu­ni­ty to ben­e­fit at the expense of oth­ers. Rur­al peo­ple were also very skep­ti­cal of ​“out­siders,” such as the cor­po­ra­tions that are pro­mot­ing CAFOs. They under­stood that more often than not, ​“out­side investors” were intent on tak­ing advan­tage of the ​“local yokels.” The strong com­mu­ni­ties of ear­li­er times were cre­at­ed out of neces­si­ty and over time became impor­tant keep­ers of rur­al social and cul­tur­al values.

Over the past year, I have met with local anti-CAFO group in Arkansas, Nebras­ka, Mis­souri, Iowa, South Dako­ta, and Ontario, Cana­da. Each group is dif­fer­ent but they all of have one thing in com­mon: they are all cre­at­ing ​“com­mu­ni­ties of neces­si­ty.” Most of these folks didn’t form these new rela­tion­ships because they want­ed to. They got togeth­er with neigh­bors because they felt they had to. They knew they would have to work togeth­er if they were to have a chance to pro­tect them­selves, their fam­i­lies and their com­mu­ni­ties from the threats of CAFOs.

Peo­ple in rur­al com­mu­ni­ties are begin­ning to join forces to defend their health and well-being against the inher­ent threats posed by con­cen­trat­ed ani­mal feed­ing oper­a­tions (CAFOs). I believe that the future lead­er­ship of rur­al Amer­i­ca is emerg­ing from among those who are tak­ing the lead in pro­tect­ing their com­mu­ni­ties against CAFOs, and I am just begin­ning to appre­ci­ate the impor­tance of the new rela­tion­ships that are being forged among rur­al peo­ple who share this com­mon con­cern for the future of their communities.

When I was a kid grow­ing on a small dairy farm in south­west Mis­souri, I lived in a strong farm­ing com­mu­ni­ty. The com­mu­ni­ty was an inter­wo­ven net­work of peo­ple who knew each oth­er main­ly out of neces­si­ty. Most farms in those days couldn’t actu­al­ly be farmed by a sin­gle farmer or farm fam­i­ly. Farm­ing was a com­mu­ni­ty affair. For exam­ple, there were crews, some up to four men and boys, who trav­eled from farm to farm to fill silos. Each farmer brought along with their share of farm equip­ment and labor. For my dad, it was most­ly labor — as there were three grow­ing boys in the fam­i­ly. In the ear­ly days, the trav­el­ing thresh­ing crews fol­lowed a steam engine that pulled and pow­ered the thresh­ing machine. The hay­ing crews tend­ed to be small­er because there was less equip­ment involved, but it still took a crew to put up hay. The men and boys worked hard, but a lot of social­iz­ing — hors­ing around — also took place at these gatherings.

The ​“farm wives” also renewed their com­mu­ni­ty con­nec­tions at time of har­vest. Sev­er­al women and girls would gath­er at the host farms on har­vest days to help the host house­wife pre­pare the noon meal for the har­vest crews. The farm women also had their indi­vid­ual groups who gath­ered peri­od­i­cal­ly to make quilts to keep their fam­i­lies warm in win­ter and to help each oth­er can fruit and to make pre­serves or cut up meat and make sausage on butcher­ing days. The work was often tedious and tire­some but the con­ver­sa­tions helped to pass the time.

These net­works of neces­si­ty were inter­con­nect­ed through local church­es. Every­body knew every­body in their own church­es as well most folks as in the oth­ers church­es near­by. The par­ents of kids who went to school togeth­er all knew each oth­er. Vis­it­ing on Sun­day wasn’t lim­it­ed to kin­folks; vis­its includ­ed neigh­bors. Peo­ple also vis­it­ed at the coun­try store and at the bar­ber shop, fill­ing sta­tion and farm­ers’ coop­er­a­tive exchange in town.

“Giv­ing some­one a hand” wasn’t lim­it­ed to help­ing out in emer­gen­cies, but was giv­en any­time some­one ​“need­ed a hand.”

These com­mu­ni­ties, cre­at­ed out of neces­si­ty, were com­mu­ni­ties that not only helped rur­al peo­ple make a liv­ing but also gave them a com­mon sense of pur­pose. Rela­tion­ships are dif­fi­cult and dis­agree­ments nat­u­ral­ly arose. But, rur­al folks knew they need­ed to get along to get by in life. Fur­ther­more, this strong sense of com­mu­ni­ty added a sense of mean­ing and qual­i­ty to day-to-day rur­al life.

But ​“times changed” in rur­al Amer­i­ca. The indus­tri­al­iza­tion of agri­cul­ture removed the neces­si­ty for com­mu­ni­ty-based farm­ing. Indi­vid­u­al­ly owned field chop­pers replaced the big silo crews, indi­vid­ual com­bines replaced big thresh­ing crews, and inex­pen­sive hay balers replaced hay­ing crews. Farm­ers were free to har­vest their own crops when­ev­er they choose, rather than wait their turn to be helped by the big crews of neigh­bors. Mod­ern kitchen con­ve­niences also elim­i­nat­ed the need for farm wives to share housework.

Social cir­cles in farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties began to nar­row and nar­rowed fur­ther as farms grew larg­er and sur­viv­ing farm­ers became few­er. New peo­ple moved into rur­al areas — seek­ing low-pay­ing jobs on fac­to­ry farms or escap­ing high liv­ing costs in cities. Most peo­ple didn’t both­er to get to know their new neigh­bors because they ​“didn’t need to.” Rur­al folks even­tu­al­ly became like city folks — not only not know­ing, but not real­ly want­i­ng to know their neighbors.

This loss of com­mu­ni­ty left rur­al com­mu­ni­ties vul­ner­a­ble what I call the ​“eco­nom­ic col­o­niza­tion” of rur­al Amer­i­ca by the large agribusi­ness cor­po­ra­tion. The com­pre­hen­sive cor­po­rate con­trac­tu­al arrange­ments that char­ac­ter­ize CAFOs are the epit­o­me of rur­al eco­nom­ic col­o­niza­tion. The ongo­ing eco­log­i­cal, social, and rur­al eco­nom­ic degra­da­tion of rur­al com­mu­ni­ties are the inevitable con­se­quences of eco­nom­ic colonization.

How­ev­er, peo­ple in rur­al Amer­i­ca are begin­ning to awak­en to what they have sac­ri­ficed in the name of inde­pen­dence and eco­nom­ic effi­cien­cy. The threat of fac­to­ry farms or CAFOs mov­ing into a com­mu­ni­ty has proven to be a pow­er­ful moti­va­tion for peo­ple to think about what they are about to lose – if they become a CAFO com­mu­ni­ty. They are also begin­ning to under­stand if they are going to pro­tect them­selves from the threats of CAFOs, join­ing forces with neigh­bors to regain the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty is an absolute neces­si­ty. They are just begin­ning to real­ize that form­ing and sus­tain­ing rela­tion­ships with oth­ers, regard­less of neces­si­ty, also is sim­ply a bet­ter way of life.

There are still many places in rur­al Amer­i­ca that have the pos­si­bil­i­ty of cre­at­ing and sus­tain­ing social­ly vibrant and eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable rur­al com­mu­ni­ties. These com­mu­ni­ties still have clean water, clean air, scenic land­scapes, and peo­ple who are com­mit­ted to car­ing for the land and care about oth­er peo­ple — even if they don’t know each oth­er very well. If these com­mu­ni­ties are able to pro­tect them­selves from CAFOs and oth­er forms of eco­nom­ic col­o­niza­tion they will be even bet­ter places to live in the future.

There is no eco­nom­ic or polit­i­cal pow­er greater than the pow­er of the peo­ple in com­mu­ni­ty. While the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty may be gained through rela­tion­ships of neces­si­ty, it can only be sus­tained through ​“rela­tion­ships of choice.” We even­tu­al­ly must come to under­stand that we social beings — rela­tion­ships, regard­less of neces­si­ty, make our lives better.

(“Rur­al Com­mu­ni­ties of Neces­si­ty” was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished on John Ikerd’s web­site and is repost­ed on Rur­al Amer­i­ca In These Times with per­mis­sion. For more infor­ma­tion about CAFOs, and the threats they pose to rur­al com­mu­ni­ties and economies, click here.)