Stefan Lynch was a participant of 1998 Bike-Aid, JustAct's cross country ride that raises awareness about global social and environmental justices. The ride passed through rural Missouri, where Stefan met Bill Christianson, an angry farmer fighting the overwhelming corporate takeover of agriculture in the US and around the world...
The unassuming farmer who helped me find a shower after a long day of cycling through rural Missouri works the 2,000 acre farm that his family has operated for 150 years outside of Chillicothe, MO.
His name is Bill Christison, and he is a smart, relaxed, but angry farmer. Enormous farms owned by stockholders in corporations who don't farm, and don't live in the state are selling crops and livestock at prices below Bill's cost for producing them. This has altered the landscape of rural America by degrading the soil and water and putting many family farmers out of business.
Over a potluck dinner, Bill, his quiet but essential wife Dixie, and ten other members of the 15 year-old Missouri Rural Crisis Center, talk about what they've had to do to survive as farmers, or how they didn't.
The stories ranged from Bill talking about his recent media tour of Europe to drum up resistance to antibiotic laden meat from American factory farms,to Jackie Reese who grew up a few miles from here, and went to a one room rural school with 13 other students. Now she has to work in town while her husband tends the hogs and her children have moved away because there isn't enough work on the farm.
This is the face of the farmer that most people don't see, the one saying don't support big agri-business, don't buy meat unless you know and trust the person who raised and butchered it, buy organic so that there's a market for it because we hate to expose ourselves and our children to the herbicides, pesticides and artificial fertilizers of conventional farming.
These are the muddy-booted producers saying to consumers: you have got to stop eating at McDonalds because it's bad for and your environment, and it's destroying our families. You've got to be more aware of where your food comes from and how it was produced.
