Life in an Ag Ghetto is like life around Chernobyl: it may look unchanged to those quickly driving by; but the poison is deep in everything — and sometimes it comes to the surface.
There’s not much biodiversity in all those thousands upon thousands of acres of Tompkins County farmland — because nothing is allowed to get in the way of the bottom line; and that includes the rural residents.
Factory farms are whole-hearted supporters of Urban Colonialist policies. The concept of food production as an overriding activity increases profits and flattens any opposition. Cornell Cooperative Extension informed the “non-farming” families in rural Lansing that they “didn’t deserve to live there,” and the most blatant environmental misconduct or health debilitating activity is treated with a blind eye or a wrist-slap.
So the next time you check a label in the grocery store; remember — there’s a little bit of a rural family ground up in there as well.