Farm Bureau, ICCI wage war of words

The war of words has escalated between two groups that’re on opposite sides of the fence on many ag issues. The newly-formed “Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers” is made up of the state’s traditional farm groups and it’s launched an offensive against Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. Iowa C-C-I has long criticized the Farm Bureau and the Pork Producers for backing what C-C-I members call “factory farms.” Aaron Putze of the Farm Bureau is a spokesman for the new Coalition.Putze says Iowa C-C-I supports “more confrontation, more litigation and more regulation” and Putze says that’s not the best way to help rural Iowa communities proper. Putze says the Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers has launched an “information campaign” to let Iowans know what Iowa C-C-I has been doing and saying. Putze says many Iowa families who “depend on a strong and growing livestock business” do the right thing, and “It’s wrong to divide rural communities at a time when we really need to unite.” Putze says Iowa C-C-I has likened some Iowa farm families to terrorists and child abusers, and he says when the debate in rural Iowa becomes that personal, it’s time to hold the organization accountable for those type of activities. Hugh Espey the executive director of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, says those comments are being taken out of context. Espey says the point C-C-I members were making is “corporate hog farms are bad for communities” and the folks who own the operations “don’t care about what they’re doing to their neighbors and to the land and to the air and to the water.” Espey says his group won’t back away from the fight. Espey says for the traditional farm groups to spend thousands of dollars on an ad campaign attacking Iowa C-C-I shows his group is having some impact. Espey says the Farm Bureau is “scared to death” of new state rules that’re being written which will establish air quality rules for large-scale livestock confinements. About one-hundred Iowa C-C-I members picketed this weekend outside the home of a Farm Bureau executive. Espey says “Iowans are sick and tired of Farm Bureau thinking that it run this state and thinking that it can just run roughshod over folks.”