Tag Archive for: Today Farm Crisis
KVLY
By now, it is pretty clear that entities linked with Bill Gates are buying farmland in North Dakota. It is also pretty clear that Drew Wrigley, appointed as North Dakota’s Attorney General by Governor Doug Burgum, isn’t interested in enforcing North Dakota’s anti-corporate farming law, North Dakota Century Code, Chapter 10-06.1.
I’ve called this law the soul of North Dakota. It was passed by initiated measure in 1932 during the depths of the Great Depression of the 1930s. It is now at risk and here is why.
In 2016, Willie Nelson and I wrote an essay “Measure 1 Is About the Soul of North Dakota.” It was about saving the North Dakota anti-corporate farm law. Six years later, this law is again at risk. And, this time the risk comes from an unexpected source.
A few days ago, while researching early Nonpartisan League history, I fortuitously came across a speech by Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy delivered in Fargo, North Dakota on June 19, 1960 at North Dakota Senator Quentin Burdick’s birthday dinner. A month later, Kennedy was endorsed for President by the national Democratic Party, where incidentally he received all the North Dakota delegate votes. That November, Kennedy won the national election. He was sworn in as president of the United States on January 20, 1961.
Like many North Dakotans my age, I have vivid memories of the thriving rural North Dakota downtowns of my childhood. Bustling stores with picture window displays lined Main Street. There were usually two law firms in each town so as to be able to represent both sides of disputes, several doctors and dentists, banks, grocery stores, and gas stations, one of which was always a Farmers Union Oil Cooperative. Each little town would have multiple churches: one was Lutheran, one was Catholic, and one maybe Methodist or Baptist. At the edge of town, multiple grain elevators towered near the railroad tracks, visible from miles away as farmers brought their harvests to town, brought their kids to school, purchased supplies, and sought fellowship.
In the early 1980s, those Main Street businesses, churches, and elevators were still buzzing. The “good years” for farming and ranching in the 50s, 60s, and 70s helped to keep a vibrant rural economy humming.