Rural Discontent Part 1

European farmers are in revolt. Why isn't it the same here?

Iowa farmers forming a blockade during the Farmers’ Holiday Strike of 1932.

No matter what that groundhog (or woodchuck, land beaver, whistle pig) says, I don’t believe we’ve seen the end of winter. Yes, the buds on the cottonwoods and maples have begun to swell. Mixing feed in the afternoon, I am visited by hungry, groggy honeybees. Egg production has picked up a bit, and it is suddenly pruning season. The robins laugh at those of us who toil upon the ground, and this pleasant, if unsettling, intermission of mild, still weather is, we hope, temporary enough to allow for a couple more seasonably cold weeks in which to finish up on necessary butchery labor. But, for now, the inertia of late winter has given way to some excitement, or at least determination, in finally ordering seeds, planning our rows and beds, and even mending a little fence. If I begin to hear spring peepers and timber-doodles, well then I’ll admit that it’s basically springtime.

And as moderately easy as it would be for me to regale you, dear reader, with quaint, inspiring, and perfectly damned bucolic descriptions of how the mama cow licks her resting little calf, sprawled limply in the hay, or of the fine bright air and the grassy belches of ruminating goats, groaning and fat with kids, we’re instead going to take a little look at current events, economics, and yes, politics.

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So, if it hasn’t been made clear by now, I’m not a big tractor guy. Not even really a small tractor guy. And while I’m a fan of manure, I’m not usually fond of seeing it liquefied and discharged during winter months, when it is prone to running off and making its way to our watersheds. All these things aside, I do feel a bit of giddy joy when observing the current wave of agrarian protests occurring in the E.U., where angry farmers are blockading streets and border crossings and, once in a while, spraying a considerable tonnage of liquid manure onto governmental buildings and dumping heaps of decaying produce in city centers. There have even been incidents of farmers planting wheat in roadways. (It’s worth mentioning here that Indian farmers kicked off the trend a couple years back.)

Acknowledging my own initial ignorance of the root cause of these protests, and the common tendency of these types of movements to quickly trend towards xenophobia and fascism (as is often the end result of European populism), there is something stirring about the notion of working class, agrarian-led disruption. The thunderous idling of tractor engines, the polluting clouds of diesel exhaust interspersed with the choking, malodorous note of fresh, wet shit– it makes me ready to go run and grab a pitchfork to join the carnival atmosphere. America, generally, is no good at a classic peasant’s revolt, and here in the Midwest, the best we can muster is a sheepish, “Well, y’know, I probably wouldn’t do things that way…”. 

After a little digging at the subject, there are a few similarities between the plight of U.S. and European farmers, and a few differences too. The current wave of dissatisfaction in the EU is being promulgated by low wages (check), inflation and a higher cost of living (check), inequitable trade agreements (check), and environmental regulations (not necessarily a check, we’ll get into it). A society with higher citizen standards, like universal health care access (much of Europe), isn’t necessarily granted by elected officials, so much as the fact that if people start to get pissed off they tend to do things like blockade border crossings and decorate urban centers with truckloads of good ol’ homegrown slurry. We all know from history just how much these people, particularly the French, love a bit of rabble rousing, if not blade sharpening. 

And while economic conditions for U.S. farmers, particularly independent farmers, are difficult and getting worse on account of conglomeration, spiking fuel, feed, and fertilizer prices, same as in Europe, I’m going to stick my neck out a bit and declare that American ag subsidies and government-backed crop insurance policies are keeping a lot of farmers in America pretty damn content, if not coddled. For whatever reason, farmers are a long-standing political prop in U.S. politics. There’s not many of them, and fewer and fewer every year, as small farms are swallowed up into multinational agridustrial firms. Environmental regulations for farms are falling by the wayside with every year, and unlike the E.U., most of our climate and emission oriented policies and programs are voluntary incentives, not mandatory dictates. I could see American farmers potentially spread some effluent on the steps of the Capitol if the feds decided to phase out diesel fuel, or cut payouts for planting commodity crops in places that cannot support commodity crops (aka federal crop insurance), but perhaps due to our mythic-cultural placement here, American farmers are just too valuable a political prop to upset. 

But just because Europeans are better at pitching a fit than Americans doesn’t mean we’re necessarily invulnerable to unrest. The root of these European farmers’ displeasure with the new environmental regulations doesn’t appear conspiratorial, like climate denial here in the U.S. In fact, the current rebellion is partly fueled by climate awareness– recent record heat in Europe has led to significant crop losses, further eating away at the economic margins for rural survival. And a host of trade agreements allow for significantly unregulated agricultural imports from places like Brazil (compounded by tariff free imports from Ukraine since conflict erupted there) to flood European commodity markets, thereby putting regulated European farms at a distinct disadvantage. So commodity prices on crops have been dropping on account of externalized and inherently unsustainable practices, and those irresponsible farm practices, explicitly outlawed in the E.U., help contribute to climate instability that directly affects the bottom-line of European farm production.   

Again, American farmers are relatively coddled in comparison with the pressures faced in Europe. We have the Farm Bill, a perennial, omnibus, bipartisan spending bill– that great, continual project of compromise, which funds everything from crop subsidies and insurance to food assistance programs like SNAP and WIC. It always has to pass, and there’s usually a lot of room in it to make everyone happy. In fact, I’ve been working on advocating for a variety of issues regarding the current Farm Bill, which would have ordinarily been signed last year. But with Congress in as poor working order as it is, the Farm Bill got punted down the line. If subsidies or crop-insurance were ever to lapse for a significant time, I imagine the shit might hit the fan, or the steps of Congress, for that matter.

Less in our control, however, is climate. We’ve already seen widespread domestic crop losses in recent years, sparked by flood and drought and exacerbated by the poor farming practices incentivized by federal crop insurance. The U.S. economy (powered mostly by the reputation of our military) has always been flexible enough to insulate agriculture from the kinds of price shocks that poorer nations and subsistence cultures could not withstand. But as the world burns and the U.S. slips in its global standing, the protective nature of our economy becomes more brittle with every war, drought, flood, and pandemic. Compounded by the incompetence of our own lawmakers, our economic supports of agriculture will continue to cost more and more each year, in the face of withering yields and climate disruption. It isn’t inconceivable that American farmers might one day break into a similar state of discontent. 

Rural anger is a real phenomenon. Here in the Heartland, it lies far below the surface, on account of our easy-going nature, but listen to the chatter at any hay or livestock auction and you’ll hear the murmuring. I imagine the quaint pleasantries that mask this discontent are less present outside of the Midwest. Poverty, reduced access to basic services, decaying infrastructure, the opioid epidemic and continuous environmental disasters unleashed on rural communities (chemical discharges, fracking…) have all beget palpable, if not entirely efficacious responses from our shrinking rural population. If the conditions worsen, or if American farmers end up pulling the short subsidy straw for a change, we might have a little revolt on our hands here too. But the question remains: would a rural populist movement in America trend right or left? 

Undoubtedly, I have a mix of readers. But I imagine a fair amount of y’all are living in cities. Why? Admittedly, my own cognitive bias has lead me to believe that we country folk don’t read a lot of e-mail newsletters. Here, we mostly like to follow along with the local obituaries, or high school athletics. Rural America, is, by and large, most politically engaged at the local levels: County commissions, school boards, or our Soil and Water Conservation District. While the bulk of rural folk are perhaps more religious and socially conservative, it really is things like the Farm Bill that have rendered us largely neutral, non-disruptive, equally placed in the pockets of both political parties. But that could all change with enough shocks to the system. So as to the question of whether a rural American populist movement might trend left or right, the thing to consider is which wing would most likely include us in its coalition. And unfortunately, it seems like fascists are really good at coalition-building. As the margin of our contentment grows thinner and brittler each year, the real question is, who’s going to claim to help us… and who’s going to dismiss us?

Populist agrarian movements and peasant revolts are unique in world history. Dynasties, empires, and regimes have always made efforts toward the increased concentration of wealth and power, and they have almost always quashed challenges to their God-given, economically sanctioned authority through either violent suppression or deceitful co-option. I’ve read enough history to know that I probably won’t be dumping a wagon-load of shit at the Capitol, mostly because I place a higher value on manure than most, and wouldn’t waste it there. But I have contacted my congressperson, and met with them (okay, just their staffers) on multiple occasions. It turns out that Republican or Democrat, they don’t seem to much care about anyone with less than half a million dollars in farm income annually. 

So, my strategy will have to change to follow suit. If our elected representatives at the federal, state, and county level are all as they appear to be, bought and sold by the American Farm Bureau, perhaps some of my neighbors would be interested in considering some policy alternatives. And maybe one of them has access to a slurry tank wagon.

Make no mistake about it– I hold no intention of joining in on any of the ruckus like the one they’re throwing in France, Germany, Poland and Greece. Fun as it looks, I’m weary of angry mobs and social movements waiting to be co-opted, and frankly, most of the protesters are field crop farmers, so they get the winter off. We’re plenty busy here, and more focused on alternative models and involving ourselves into politics on the local level. The early stages of these types of rebellion always look like a party– it’s the subsequent hangover of fascism and xenophobia I’m concerned with.  

Perfectly damned bucolic, but well-armed with an arsenal of manure,

BB

This is the introduction to a mini-series I’ll be working on this year on rural populism and agrarian revolts throughout history, from the Populist Party and the Farmer’s Alliance movements of the Gilded Age to the Telengana Rebellion of India and the early agrarian socialism of the Diggers, available for supporting readers, alongside other exclusive pieces, the complete archives, and for annual membership subscribers, a paperback copy of the first year of the Almanac, available in March. But obviously, thanks to everyone who reads!