Page 2 RAIN July 1979 RAIN's office is at 2270 N.W. Irving, Portland, OR 97210. Ph: (503) 227-5110. RAIN STAFF: Phil Conti Steven Arries Yale Lansky Pauline Deppen Jeff Paine Del Greenfield Tad Mutersbaugh Layout Jill Stapleton CONTRIBlJTORS. Tom Bender Lane deMoll Steve Johnson Copyright © 1979 RAIN Umbrella Inc. Typesetting: Irish Setter Printing: Times Litho arios of an electronically orchestrated global village. There are discussions along the way that we are involved in daily, and decisions that have to be made that include cost/benefit analysis, social impact and resource allocation. ==================== The Network Nation is an important rt/'"\1\ Jr1\ lrTTN]n A m]ON contribution to an intelligent conversa- \.J\.JJ.VJ..LV.L U un.J. tion about communication systems. The The Network Nation, Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoof, 1978, 528 pp., $17.50 from: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. Reading, Massachusetts 01867 It strikes me that I see very little discussion, interest or tough analysis of alternative communication technologies. A careful analysis of communication systems has not taken hold among groups working in the area of appropri.: ate technology, even though an analysis of the activities and budgets of these groups would probably reveal a large expenditure for what one could inter- ~ pret as communication goals, for example: education, publications, information exchange, making contact with resource persons, mail, phone, handling referrals, maintaining an active group of participants (a board, for example), and participating in interest-based networks. The analysis of communication systems surely must include the entire range, from personal contact to seenbook focuses on computer-aided conferencing systems such as EIES, the Electronic Information Exchange System, of which Hiltz and Turoof are prime movers. EIES uses a central computer at the New Jersey Institute of Technology to structure, store and process written communication among individuals, and groups of individuals who enter typewritten messages through terminals located in their homes or offices. There / - <.- -t?f!& ', • ~ -..... ---...__ ~- i t - - Oo • --==.... ~-~ -=:-:=~::::-:g---£!> are presently some 600 members and 45 groups. On EIES an individual can send a message to any other individual on the system. If both individuals are on-line at the same time they can send one line messages directly to each other; otherwise a message can be sent and the recipient will be told there is a message waiting whenever they next log on (phone up the EIES computer from their termipal). Groups on EIES serve a variety of functions. Communication that goes between members can be read by all other participants in the conference; but in order for an individual on the EIES system to participate in the conference, they must submit a request to the designated conference coordinator. In some cases the groups are just a loose collection of individuals all interested in some particular subject area. Others have used EIES to coordinate research, and communicate between branch offices. For example, the World Symposium on Humanity used EIES to coordinate its three-site conference in April. The wide range of individuals presently on EIES is testimony to its unique capability as a catalyst for restructuring social and information networks. The system allows one to remain in social and information networks of one's own choosing (by forming or becoming a member of certain groups-co.riferences), while opening up possible channels of communication through a private message mechanism. One can also locate descriptions of all individuals, and in that way find kindred souls, contacts, resource persons, etc. LEGITECH is an interesting sub-part of EIES. Legislative researchers in 25 states and resource-reviewers in a like number of federal agencies and other resource organizations use EIES to exchange inquiries, response and leads about scientific and technical matters of interest to state legislatures. There are many delicately wrought software programs on EIES that allow individuals and groups to, for example,
edit and distribute drafts of res~arch papers, vote on issues, retrieve previous messages, structure comments in a conference in order to distribute a summary of the conference. The Network Nation describes in exhaustive detail the experiences of the EIES system. But the book is not simply the advocacy of a particular communication system. The discussions that focus on social networks, the impact of communication technology on class differences, equal opportunity, and the careful weighing of alternatives in light of social, economic and resource allocation considerations is an important con- ·tribution. ' Unlike a purely speculative tome on the f?ture of communications, The Network Nation is based on currently available technologies. The book is a wealth of information about recent experimental models, and develqpments in electronic c::ommunication tech~ology. -SJ National Self Help Resource Center 2000 S Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20009 NSHRC is involved in a variety of community, communication and informa- .tion'projects. Recently they have coordinated an experimental program to test the use-of community colleges as community based resource ,centers that could improve the capacity for citizen participation. Th_ey are a key source • of information about resource·centers. Network Notes, their newsletter, recently published two useful resource lists, one on magazines and newsletters for persons interested in community/ neighborhood issues, the other outlining some national groups working on issues of community development, self-help communication networks. -SJ The Journal ofAlternative Human Services, quarterly, $8/year individuals from: . Community Congress of San Diego 1172 Morena Blvd. Sart Diego, CA 92110 The journal is one of my primary resouic_es for information abdut innovative social services, communication and community building model projects. The Human Services in the title hardly does justice to the wide range of information and articles. The most recent issue had articles on neighborhood or~ ganizing, alternative funding, and the office of tomorrow (use of.computeraided communication systems). The "Information Exchange" section is a well-done short review section similar to Rain. In the most recent issue some resources covered included: Robin Hood Was Right: A Guide to Giving Your Money for Social Change; Consun:i,ers Guide to Nonsexist Therapy; ' Just Economics; Aegis-magazine on ending violence against women; Bulletin of the National Center for Educatioilal Brokering. -SJ July 1979 RAIN Page 3 AFIPS Washingt~n Report American Federation of Information Processing Societies 1815 N. Lynn Street, suite 805 Arlington, VA 22209 One of the bargains 9f the month. A free weekly newsletter that summarizes major legislative action related to information access, information and communication technology, regulations, privacy, freedom of information. Extensive calendar of legislative events. -SJ The Journal of Community Communications, quarterly, $6/yr. from: P.O. Box 996 Berkeley, CA 94703 One of the best (and may~e the only) sources of information on experimental community communication and information systems. Some of the staff ' traces back to the days of the bold Community Memory e,xperiment in the Bay Area,·when computer terminals • were placed in public places (The Whole Eart:h Truck Store, for example), allowing persons to exchange information in an electronic bulletin board style. The Journal has good in-depth ,articles that explore political, social and technical aspects of communicatiqns. Lots of information on recent model experiments. -SJ GOLDMINES FBI ~ollusion in Madison Anti-War Bombing - • De~a1!s on F~I forekno~ledge and presence at the Physics 1 Bu1ldmg antI-~a~ hombmg that resulted in the only (atality caused by anti-Vietnam War actions, and the government's reasons for allowing it to happen-in the January 1979 Mother Jones ($8.88/yr. or $1.50/copy, Box 2482, Boulder, C,O 80322). Another damaging piece of evidence about Uncl.e Sam, Dick and J. Edgar's true roles in those times. -TB Anti-Nuclear Civil Rights Repression in Germany Another article in the same excellent January 1979 Mother Jones gives a chilling account of current fascist repression in Germany- disbarring any lawyer who defends an anti-nuclear or civil rights case, interrogation and dismissal of workers for "anti-~overnment feelings," silencing of opposition newspaper reportmg. Worth some heavy thinking. - TB Defensive Arts I usually don't get much interested in discussions of Karate Tai-Chi, Aikido and other Asian defensive arts, but George ' Leonard's article, "Mastering Aikido" in the April '79 New Age ($12/yr. or $1.50/copy, 32 Station St:, Brookline, MA 02146) had a wonderful ,gripping feeling to it that really conveyed the psychic magic of sureness and centeredness, where the hand, heart and head together" are quicker than the eye, and where what is overc9me is more than another person's aggression. -TB The Profitable Shortage in Gasoline In These Times energy articles in their May 30 iss.ue (p. 2 and 12) ($1 from IIT, 1509 North Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, IL 60622) are enough to fuel a revolt against oil company monopolies and profiteering ~rom rigged shortages. Accounts • of tankers unable to unload high test,,no-lead.gas because all storage tanks were full and gas stations empty because of companies hoarding for higher prices. And Barry Commoner's comment on threats o_f blackouts if nuclear power plants are ~hut down: "That's dead wrong. Take the Chicago area, which 1s more dependent on nuclear power than anywhere in the country: 44 percent of their electricity comes from nuclear power plants. If you jacked up the usage of their non-nuclear plants, which are now operafrng at only 37 percent of capacity, and brought them up to 57 percent, you could close down four of the seven nuclear plants in Chicago. All the electricity produceq by nuclear power plants in the U.S. is just about equal to the excess capacity that the entire system now has." Good fuel to fire up some ch'.anges! -TB
Page 4 RAIN July 1979 "JI. C a ,. ag 11 < 1 C 1 t c: d 1 a : ' I, I~ by .Phil Conti The evolution of an individual's con-· sciousness over a year is a fascinating process to observe. During the past 12 . months I watched several frien.ds change their focus from the techniques of s'olar water heater construction and intensive gardening to the concepts of communitybased economic development. Wanting to share their skills with a broader audience and make a living as well, a neighborhood business was a natural conclusion..Increasing numbers of people are making the connection-that neighborhood-based and contrnlled enterprises can result in institutions which are more responsive to the community's collective wishes. A recent Portland conference on neighborhood involvement in economic development attracted a wide range of interest groups. Attending the workshops were solar advocates, business people, community organizers, government workers, church representatives and neighbors. A common problem shared by most participants was ac- • quiring the necessary start-up money. Discussions on leveraging th_ousands of dollars for community development seemed premature without seed capital. If neighborhoods are to be successful in their bid for economic power, opportunities for obtaining start-up capital . must be made available. The Community Development Block Grants· (CDBG) program could provide that opportunity. Currently, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) distributes $4 billion annually in CDBG funds to urban cities and counties. Because of their flexible use, block grants can be a good source of seed money for economic dev~lopment activities. Possible uses of the funds include acquisition of land or a building for housing, operation of a health clinic or weatherization business, payment of a project's administrative costs and purchase of construction equip- $eeds,for Self-Help ment. There are two obvious limitations on the use of block gra_nts. The first is st_atutory requirements that restrict the use of the money to meet the needs of low and moderate income groups. The other is that the city has sole discretion over which proposals receive funding. Traditionally cities •have been conservative in their use of CDBG funds. However, as noted in the resource groups listed below, several metropolitan areas are starting to channel ploc,k grants to.some self-help , neighborhood economic programs. Community development block grants alone will not make a neighborhood self-reliant: Their use should, as • Ms. Stone concludes in her manual (Community Development Block Grants reviewed in this issue), "be part of a larger community strategy, one that looks beyond an immediate dependence on external help to.a selfsufficient future." RESOURCES: Community Development Block Grants, A Strategy for Neighborhood Groups, Margaret Stone, 1978, $·3.50 for.community organizations eligible for legal services, $7.50 all others, from: National Economic Development & Law Center 2150 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA 94704 This is an excellent manual for neighborhood groups who want to participate in the CO.BG process. Helpful chapters on researching and reading CDBG forms not only explain the form lines but also how to read between them. Other topics include preparing the proposal, monitoring local government programs and asserting your rights through pre-litigation strategies and lawsuits. All this information is in a very readable text which maintains a vision of a more economically independent community. An Advoc.acy Guide to the Community Development Block Grant Program, Clearinghouse Review January Supplement 1979, free to legal services attorneys and paralegals·, $15 to VISTA, students and prison law libraries; $30 all others from: National Clearinghouse for Legal Service • • 500 North Michigan Ave., Suite 1940 Chicago, IL.60611 Clearinghouse Review is a monthly legal publication which frequently reports on community development issues. An overview of the CDBG program is in the January supplement. Of interest to neighborho,od groups is a section entitled "Special Provisions for Funding Community Organizations and Community-based Economic Development." Check it out at your local legal services office. Urban Integrated Community Demonstration Project This project is designed to enable residents of the Whitaker Neighborhood in Eugene, Oregon; to become more selfreliant in areas of food production, energy, recycling, housing and health. Activities include: collective gardening, composting and food pr-oce'ssing; urban agriculture class for the local elementary school; expansion of a local re- . cycling business; cooperative housing; weatherization business; self-help medical program. The purpose i's to see how these techniques can be used on an integrated basis in a low-income neighborhood. NCAT has provided planning funds and CDBG monies will be used for acquisition of land and buildings. Whiteaker Community Council 21 N. Grand · • Eugene, OR 97402 _10.,
f D[ C ;f $ L $ Energy Efficient Community Center Construction of a passive solar heated ' neighborhood center is scheduled to begin this July in Spokane; WA. The facility will provide day care, health, youth and recycling services. Rents from leased space will pay for 80-90 percent of the administrative and operating expenses. CDBG funds will-pay ' .for design and construction costs. For more information, write: Kathy Reid . West Central Area Community Center W. 2910 Dean Spokane, WA 99201 The Neighborhood Resource Project A coalition of ten Seattle neighborhood and technical assistance groups are coordinating sevep community technology projects. Two of the CDBG funded projects are a furniture repair and recycling program and an inher-city produce market. If you would like more information contact: Lucy Gorham The Neighborhood Technology Coalition 909 Fourth Ave. Seattle, WA 98104 CD-BG Monitoring Program The Working Group for Community Development Reform monitors CDBG for compliance with federal regulations. They have subcontracts with non-profit organizations in 22 locations to monitor their local programs. This self-help arrangement allows local citizen groups the opportunity to develop additional familiarity with their CDBG process. In return the Working Group is able to ., amass data on the local level for evaluation. Their newsletter, The CD Citizen, contains updates on the progress of the project. Write: Working Group for CD Reform 1000 Wisconsin, N.W. Washington, DC 20007 Opportunity Funding Corp. (OFC), a non-profit corporation, guarantees loans made by traditional lenders to businesses located in low-income communities. A 2-1/2 to 5 percent fee is charged to the borrower to cover administrative • costs. dFC also provides management services for the Cooperative Assistance Fund (CAF). CAF contains the combined resources of ten foundations, which make investments and loans in poor neighborhoods. To find out more ' 1 information, write: Sheila Smith OFC 20i1 K Street N.W. Suite 701 • Washington, DC 20006 The National Economic Development and Law Center . The center publishes the Economic Development and Law Center Report, a bimonthly newsletter which focuses on the legal aspects of community economic development, including updates on CDBG. A selected bibliography on Community Development Corporations (CDCs) was included in the November/ December 1978 issue. Besides the news· letter, several excellent how-to manuals have been written to complement the major work of the center, which is to provide legal and planning assistance to CDCs on a project-by-project basis. They can be reached at: N.E.D. & L.C. 2150 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA 94704 July 1979 RAIN Page 5 The Community Investment Fund The fund serves two needs. First, it offers ~nvestors an opportunity to support socially and ecologically responsible enterprises. Secondly, it provides fi- ·nancing for community controlled economic development. A report, Model for a Community Investment Fund, outlines the structure and organization of the fund. At this date capital is still being accumulated. For further information contact: Nathan Gray Institute for Community Economics 639 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, MA 02139 Community Economics, Inc., a nonprofit organization, primarily provides technical assistance in the form of economic analysis and financial feasibility studies in alternative housing 0wnership (e.g. cooperatives). They are also researching alternative investment p9ssibilities for pension funds. Contact: Chris Webb Community Economics, Inc. 6529 Telegrap~ Ave. Oakland, CA 94601 Cente,; for Community Economic Development A non-profit organization doing research and·providing technical assistance in community-controlled eco- -nomic development. The center also publishes an information quarterly newsletter. They can be contacted at: Center for Community Economic Development . 639 Massachusetts Ave. Suite 316 Cambridge, MA 02139 □ □ □
Page 6 RAIN July 1979 • ••• •••••• •• • • • • ••• • • • ••••• ••• • •• •• •• ••• ••• •• • •• DATACONTROLDATACONTROLDATACONTROL '' THE BIGGEST THING IN SMALLNESS?'' BY TOM BENDER "Better solutions to many of the basic proqlems plaguing the nation's food chain can be obtained by means of the small family farm than can be achieved through the large capital-intensive, fossil-fuel based operation. " These are not the words of a decentralist, "small is beautiful" advocat~ but the head of~ multi-national corporatim:-1, operating in 33 countries, employing more than 45,000 people and receiving revenues last year of over $2 bill'ion-a corporation that has donned the rhetoric of smallness and is rapidly extending its activities into m~ny areas of "appropriate technology." • Control Data head Bill Norris is a board member of Appropriate Technology International-the AID-supported international development group'whose initial aim to support indigenous development in poor countries has been turned ·into a $20 million slush fund.for U.S. industries to market their products and services abroad. Coritrol Data ha~ offered financial support to several midwestern a.t. groups working in urban agriculture in return for data developed from their research. They have developed a pilot program for franchising Rural Development Centers that would provide management, technical, advisory and perhaps credit services to small farmers, and have c·ommitted several million dollars to their entry into the area of small-scale agriculture~CDC's Technotec, an international compu,ter-based technology exchange service, has been courting' a.t. groups around the world for sev~ral years to set up for them both an a.t. and a small farming data base, and CDC's staff has been quietly omnipresent at all major a.t. and small farm gatherings in the last couple of years. . Attempted corporate entry into these areas is inevitabl~ as their viability becomes more widely recognized, but is obviously bringing a strong reaction from people who recognize that there is not room for livelihood as well as for corporate profits in these areas. Governmental entry into these areas as represented by NCAT, ATI, NSF and DOE programs/nonprograms has shown that its true interests and impacts are , rarely compatible or of real value to the development of decentralized patterns. Big Business's challenge is more powerful' and even less supportable, but it means that citizen and . technology groups must act clearly and competently to both demonstrate convinci1ngly the capabilities of ,our dreams while exposing the- true intentions and implications of corporate initiatives. The central focus of CDC's small farming initiative appears to be their proposed Rural Development Cente:rs. Through these centers CDC would provide a number of services: acquisition of large ( 1000 acre) acreages and resale in 80-100 acre blocks, assistance in organization of centralized purchasing of essential products and services, obtaining credit, establishment of local marketing structures, smaller processing units and qualifying for government programs. The farmers may be offered computer-based instruction packages as well as CDC's main interest, a "computer optimized package of technology (crop, livestock, fertilizer, energy, equipment, etc.) that ~s "being developed." (:oncern over CDC's activities resulted in Gil Friend at CalOAT pulling together information on them and questions as to their implicatipns. In February he sent that information out to more than 100 people and groups to initiate clearer discussion of appropriate actions. Many people's initial reaction to CDC's activities had been distrust and resignation, .similar to the response that coincided with beginning corporate dominance of solar energy-"They're not going to go away," "They will go ahead with or without us, so let's at least try to assist them to go in good directions." But the composite picture which q1.me together when Gil·pooled the individual fragments of insights and information he got as feedback was quite different. It exposed more clearly CDC's weaknesses, the implications of their activities, the capabilities of a.t., farm, and community groups to achieve much more without CDC than with them, and confidence in those capabilities: A sample: "There is a striking similarity in CDC's actions vis a vis small farm agriculture and the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s relq,tionships between large ·development corporations in the so-called, "urban renewal" schemes and the citizens of the areas being "renewed." The corporations were often apparently receptive to community needs and ideas yet they left "vague" or "undecided" or "incomplete" gaps in the planning. The pl~nning process wa,s otherwise extremely well thought out and usually very well articulated, so it seemed strange, in retrospect usually, that these gaps existed. What virtually always transpired was that these gaps and the apparent receptivity to other ideas were enticement~ to attract or get people and groups to go along with the corporation. Only when it was too late did the community groups realize t~ey had been co-opted for end,s in conflict with their own. I w-ould suggest that CDC is using the same tactics. "The kinds ofgaps 'that CDC has left- e.g. who controls the coordinated marketing effort, and what have they done concerning organizational .structures that maximize the farmer's own responsibility and control- these gaps don't reflect a lack of understanding of the overall situation; rather they reflect deviousness. These are subtle yet crucial elements to both a realistic a. t. approach, and by their exclusion, an obvious ploy for CDC to gain an economic hold over the farmers.
July 1979 RAIN Page 7 •• • ••• •••• •• ••• ••• •••• •• • • • • •••• •• ••••• •• ••• •• ••• ••• ••••••••••• • • "I'm sure that CDC must be aware that the problem facing the U.S. farmer is not inadequate tech~ nology availability, but rather access to and control of markets, credit, and land and produce prices. If they are sincere about trying to a~sist the s:11all farmers, why do they propose technology in place • of these other more important needs?" "I can agree with the statement that if something is viable, it should work ·on the marketplace..However, the.marketplace as it currently stands is heavily skewed in favor of larger corporations and processes which take control away from the individual and focus it in fewer and fewer bands. The process CDC offers (,eeds into this understanding of the marketplace. ;,Control Data is not a misnomer. They don't give money away easily, and they will want 'control'." "CDC is trying to create a system offranchise farms, complete with starting kit, financi;1g, and CDC control of marketing in both direc_tions. ... "· "CDC is a "notoriously poor company." Most of their advanced technology, such as the PLATO terminals, were purchased, rather than developed in-house (e.g., PLATO from University of Illinois). They have been unable, through their entire history, to deliver working software. They underbid IBM to get a contract, then leave the user waiting for years to get the bugs out of the software-everybody becomes CDC's R&D lab. Technotec is unsuccessful. Their network is "backward"-is prone to errors and frequent crashes. CDC can't be dealt with as if invulnerable. ... " - "Don't forget that other programs which were "intended" to benefit the small farmer, programs such· as price supports and irrigation, came with time to shore up the profitability of the vertically integrated corporations involved with agribusiness. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the implications of an agricultural/a. t. data base, stripped of social contextwithin which these technologies have thus far been wrapped, and repackaged within the sleazy populism of the CDC proposal, will do anything to forestall the demise which threatens the small farmer in this country." "In the literature des~ribing Tecbnotec, Control Data makes it quite clear that they wa1-Jt to corner the market on information brokerage. They view information as a commodity which should be sold in a free market, competitive economy. Although they claim that Technotec is merely a means·of bringing problems and solutions into interactiP,n with each other, the way the system works keeps CDC firmly in control, and every part of the transaction has its price. There is a charge for listing ($400 per item per year), and a charge for searching ($90/hour). Then, even if you find a possible source for the technology YOZf • seek, you have to pay a further charge ($50-$400 or . more) for the name of the _source. This last charge, the so-called 'Contact Price' is determined by the subscriber-which encourages subscribers to think of their information as~ commodity and to charge what the market will bear. Obviously, the parties in transactions facilitated over such a system will be entrepreneurs, and participation by those who could most benefit by information exchange is excluded. The rich, and the information-rich, get to meet each other. in Technotec's computerized cocktail party." - "Interestingly, the Tecbnotec literature also discusses technology transfer in relation to the world population problem: stating that because population will double, "we will have to double the physical volume of aU- our existing infrastructures, be they ind7:strial production facilities, social services, communications networks, agric,ultural production, educational services or ho__using facilities." And CDC proposes that existing technology sources use Technotec to trans[er (sell) their technologies to the rapidly growing market. In other words, this is a system that perpetuates and facilitates technological colonialism, without"a_ddressing the question of why the 'existing infrastructures' still leave 213 of the world's people in relative misery. A simple doubling of inJrastructure.s does nothing to change power relationships."
Page 8 RAIN July 1979 • • • • • ••• •• ••• • ••• • • ••• ••• • •• • ••• • • •••• ••• • •• •• •••• • • • • • •• ••• • • • ••••• •• • •• • •• ••••• "Many of the 'economies' which they propose are, of course, real needs for small farmers. But to assume that CDC, or any multinational corporation, has the ability to de!iver these economies to the producing (or consuming) public is simply to ignore the inequalities at the core of the insurance/credit industry where CDC makes most of its profit. I'm talking about those key concepts like 'pooling of risks' which have long-since gone out the window in favor of 'high profit protectionism.' Said simply, over a lifetime what is a 'reasonable profit' for CDC would be beyond the imaginings of small farmers." "We have the technological skills available t; small farm organizers to far surpass those of CDC. We sbould not be intimidated by their pretense at technological ot managerial expertise. We can put together a producer/consumer controlled information system that both provides maximum leverage .in a monopoly market AND promotes cooperative decisions and action ,to fight that monopoly." • "In discussing the CDC proposition with a group of farmers this morning, not a one of them bought the argument that this kind ofapproach would help them AND their neighbors survive. And THAT is the political question!" "This project entirely bypasses the issue offair pricin,g for farm products. CDC is focusing their attention and ours on technology as a solution to young farmer, small farm problems. This is the same solution that is always brought up by business as a way to deal with problems of the 'Have-nots'- poverty, hu~ger; resource depletion, etc." "What intrigues me is the corporate strategy and longterm planning horizon thai seems to be implicit in these moves. I think they envision, not the demise.of agribusiness ·(rather the stabilization of agribusinessmen- large scale food processing and marketing on a more socially sustainable base); instead, the demise of the large farm operation component ofagribusiness·. Several of the corporate farmers (for example, Tenneco, which /CCR, Mark Ritchie and I studied intensiv,ely in 1976) have already moved substantially out offarming their own land and into sub-contracted 'or tenant farming. Less hassle, less public visibility, more profit. In its own perverse way, Wall Street shadows Wendell Berry: larger, even more centralized farms (above the 1,000 acre, $500,000 average) are just not sustainable in the ,credit markets of the . 1980s. CDC knows what kind of loans are most reliable. The social objective ofgetting more people back on the land (and off of welfare in the cities) just happens to ·coincide with an astute reading of longer- , term economic necessity." "The CDC programs are especially_interesting in light offarm policy reports of the "Committee on Economic Development." Their 1964 stateme'nt lJbserved that the agricultural sector could not support an adequate return to both capital and labor as then organized, and recommended that farm population be cut by one-third within five years through a policy of enforcing low farm prices. Their 1974 farm policy report observed the relative success that came from fallowing their program, identified a need to stabilize the declin~ of the small farm sector, and called for a program of direct welfare/subsidy payments to the lower three-fourths of the farm population." What are CDC's real intentiqns and their past record? ~lthou~h ultimate intentions may never be known, their more immediate plans were discussed in a meeting with small farm/ a.t. people in April. Although originally a computer company, _CD~ now gets 60 percent of its profits from credit operations, '"'.h1ch h~ve expanded from an initial lucrative program to provide car msurance for ex-cons. CDC has refined the "social responsibility" corporate public relations activities of past years into an ability to focus on small and disadvantaged. areas where people are incapable of shopping for alternatives, and set things up so it can quite profitably provide those services. ~s their 1978 Social Responsibility Report states, "The maJor problems of our socit;ty are massive, and massive ~esour_ces are requ.ired for their solution. The best approach 1s to view them with the strategy in mind that they can be profitable business opportunities with an appropriate sharing of cost between business and government." Restated, that says you can make a lot of money from government subsidies and appear to be solving society's problems as well. CDC is attempting to parlay ·its "social responsibility" projects into a coalition of support for their small farm proJ~Ct from church ~roups, farmers unions, major agribusiness firms, banks and msurance companies, USDA extension, community development organizations and the federal government. They have already in.vested three ·quarters of a million dollars in grants to major universities for supportive research for its small farm problem-with the hope of gett;ing the federal governme11t to match their funds on a 10 to 1 basis. If successful, the cori:>or~ium would similarly make available even more funds from the other coalition members. A "coalition" • in this case can possibly be defined as using other people's names, dollars and work while you get the profits. When pressed as to what CDC considered a ''reasonable" profit for its activities, it admitted that in one area at least bridge financing for farm land purchase, 18-20 percent pr;fit would be "reasonable and expected." CDC claims that the mainstream of their small farm project is not credit or an attempt to become an agribusiness company, but to provide the farmers with inforI].1ation services. "One hundred thousand farmers spending $500 ~ year on information is a $50,000,000 market. They spend more than that on crazier things." . But other questions remain. CDC "fully intends to vertically· mtegrate the small farmer." They also admit "you've got to realize that these things produced for the small farmer will be used by the large farmer." Norris is rabidly against non-profit organizations (asserting, I assume, that most corporations pay more_than ph~ntorr_i taxes). How d9 they view co-ops, CDC's workmg rela~10n with non-profits, and the government-funding for _CDC projects that they seek? Thejr statements of corporate ethics sound good-much better, in fact, than the $4.6 million in brib~s or "questionable payments" they've admitted making to foreign governments. And CDC's proposals are to improve th_e productivi~y of small farmers, when we clearly know that will depress pnces, make credit repayment more difficult and worsen the problems it attempts to solve.
July 1979 RAIN Page 9 • • •• • ••• • • • • •• • • ••• •• • • •• • ••• •• ••• ••• •• •• •• • •••••••• • • • • •• • ••• • • • • •• • ••••••••• Another curiosity is how smoothly CDC's small-farm activities seem to mesh with the 1974 proposals of the Committee on Economic Development-the pro-Big Business group whose earlier programs were successfully implemented through the federal government, resulting in more than 2.2 million farmers losing their jobs and lifetim_e investments. Their current pitch is to get government welfare to keep small farmers on the farm an9 out of the cities (perhaps that's where CDC's profit money will come from), so the small farmers can provide cheap_laborintensive inputs to agribusiness but lose their independence and political clout. It all becomes.less curious when you find out that one of the CDC Board of Directors was oh the CED committee that formulated their current prol5osals. • More basic than these questions concerning CDC :ire those concerning corporate activity in these areas in-general. It has become clear from analysis of CED documents and subsequent government actions that our agricultural problems by and large have been the result of carefully developed and ~ucce~sfully implemented policies to increase corporate profits. Likewise, current proposals for "solving" present farm problems , are only attempts to repaint the problems to make p~s~ible even further profiteering. Regardless of Control Data s mtentions, any provider of information s·ervices to farmers would be difficult to keep from establishing profitable relations with agribusiness equipment suppliers, agribusiness food processors,· credit suppliers, etc. If CDC won't do it, someone else will step in who will. The mere fact of some small farmers having a "corporate information and management service" would make cr~dit access for other farmers without such (good or bogus) services more difficult and push the;m into similar corporate ties. • The inevitable evoiution of such a 'sy~t~m is into franchise farming, where the farmer takes the risks.and the corporation takes the profits. ,Tenneco switched from direct farming to franchise farming to let someone else provide the dollars and take the risks. MacDonald's did the same with hamburgers. Then when the risk was gone: they began to -take over the more profitable franchises themselves. It is necessary to remember that there are many levels where changes work simultaneously--:-but to frequently different ends. Information services to farmers may help them (questionable in this case) but also help_someone else towards somewhat different ends. In addition to the likelihood of franchise farms, CDC admittedly looks at-the internatjonal farm market as the most lucrative outlet for the data they hope to assemble from U.S. small farmers. They also proudly announced to us·a recent $300,000 contract with the Venezuelan govern- ~ent for improving peasant nutrition. CDC would provide satellite monitoring of weather, c~op conditions, etc., which they also provide to Russia, China, the U.S. and other countries. But centralized knowledge of such information makes meddling in inter-seasonal farm futures a profitable lure-a northern hemisphere crop failu·re can provide an extremely profitable market for reverse-season so'uthern hemisphe~e crops. The tendency then would be to orient Venezuela's agriculture to export markets, which would likely worsen the nutrition level in the country as much as it would fatten the pocketbooks of export:ers. These g~mes are nothin~ new, of course-while you watch TV, the networks are selling your presence to advertisers. And whi~e. y9u enjoy yourself _at Disneyland, their computers are m6nitoring and analyzmg what makes you laugh, and cry,_and pay. Is there reason to support these things? The-se glimpses into corporate strategies in agriculture suggest other disturbing possibilities. A suggestiop that the ser- ' vices·Control Data proposes to sell to farmers would more • aptly be provided by the extension services brought out a suspicion that they would be the next likely public "problem" to be solved by corporate takeover and our tax c;lollars. Then the Post Office, Social Security . . . . We need to look at and deal with the corporate causes of our problems rather than merely their proposed "solutions," to restructure those systems for socially viable operation rather than operation that ciistorts the system to maximize the profit siphoned off at one point, and learn to look . through the masks of rhetoric we so easily have been fooled by in the past. If farm prices, market ·and credit access are the proble'ms, we need'to focus on getting those things changed to resolve the problems and remove the opportunity for selfserving coFporate "soluti~ns." How we learn to respond to_ these corporate initiatives will strongly affect the future direction of development in this c~untry. CDC knows they're not dealing with an easy win. They . know that lying to us will b,oomerang as it did at Three ~ile ·island and innumerable other cases where.corporate deceit has failed. It was dear in our meeting that their staff was instructed to be scrupulously honest with us, even when it hurt, but never, of course, to volunteer, and always to div~rt when possible. A coordinated effort is continuing to examine CDCinteresting new data on their South African activities.has just been uncovered. Detailed proposals for decentralized computer networking are being developed. Discussion on appropriate actions are taking place at farm and a.t. conferences; information is being spread through numerous journals and newsletters. Res·ources The Loss of Our Family Farms: Inevita_ble Results or Conscious Policy, Mark Ritchie, 1979, $2.50 from: • Earthwork 3410 19th St. San''Francisco, CA 94110 An illuminating analysis of the farm policy recommendations of the Committee for Economic Development that forced 2.2 • million farmers out of agriculture, how they have been enacted by the same people-now wearing the hats of the federal government-with<;>ut public debate of alternatives, and _what their present proposals are. Control Dat(!-, Control Data, Control Data, Control Data, A Look at the Small Farm and Appropriate Technology Programs of Control Data, Gil Friend, 1979, 8 pp.; 50¢, bulk rates upon request from: Agribusiness Accountability Publications P.O. Box 313 31 San Francisco·, CA 94131 A discussion paper on the issues focusing on Control Data, including background from Gil's.earlier m_emos, a syi:opsis <:>f the issues ii:ivolved, substance and evaluation of meetmgs with Control Data, and ary exploration of responses to CI)C initia- •tives, user-controlled systems, local actions, etc. DODOO
Page 10 RAIN July 1979 A little homework will do wonders for Rain readers before delving into this eye-opening exploration. That is-ifyou haven't done so already-go back and skim through "Mine the Trash Cans-Not the Land" in our November 1978 issue. Written by the members of the Oregon Appropriate Technolo'gy consulting group, including Dan Knapp, it is easily our most reqfl,ested back article. It is also a real revelation on bow high-tech, mechanized resource recovery systems-like the dinosaur that lies idle in Lane County, Oregon-can be outperformed and outclassed by simple, labor-intensive handsorting systems that highgrade valuable metals out of the swelling solid waste stream. Turning Waste Into Wealth, Part I, is Dan's broader indictment of this country's Waste. Establishment-from the tunnelvision language it uses to cre1 ate arbitrary divisions between liquid and solid wastes, forestalling the development of alternatives, to its anal c_ompulsion to create totally new toxic waste problems out of the old ones it can't seem to solve. But just like the whole energy question, waste reality is changing very quickly. Many recycling microeconomies are already on line and ?forking wellwith even less subsidization than the solar alt,ernative has" enjoyed. It's entirely feasible that a larger recycling economy can pay its way. First, however, some barriers must come down.... In the August/September Rain, Part II of Dan's article, How It Could Happen, will scope out some principles, for organizing Effective Recycling Behavior in neighborhoods, successful examples and places to plug into for waste activism. It's been good working with_Dan to pull this article together. I'm convinced that in an ecologically based society garbagepeople would occupy a most honored station.· For further information, you can contact Dan at OAT, P.O. Box 1525, Eugene, Oregon 97440. -Steven Am.es I. Why It Isn't Happening Waste is the opposite of wealth; it is the refidue left over after value has been extracted; it is nullity, a void. ... Consume, waste, walk away, forget. This process is structured into our habits and ou_r lives. It is The Way Things Are Done. Anyone who has stood,·as I have, through the long hours of a high-volume day at the dump, handing out informational leaflets, must conclude that it is a public spectacle, a massive ritual-dare I say it?-a deliberate flaunting on many levels of conspicuous wealth, real or imagined, temporary or perrna-· nent, paid for or not. "Spotting loads" was a function we in Lane County's onetime Office of Appropriate'Technology decided was necessary to maximize Effective Recycling Behavior in the early stages of our Metals Recovery Demonstration Project. One of our "spotters" would shepherd willing members of the public to separate desirable metals out of their mixed loads and drop them off a:t a metals recovery area. It worked! We made $2400 in hard cash-not free grant bucks-for the deficit-ridden county Solid Waste Division in our first (and only) ten weeks of operation, while segregating, sorting and marketing 30,000 pounds of_high-grade elemental copper, brass, aluminum and steel at the Glenwood Solid Waste Center. In the process we doubled the volume of metals recycled through the county's metals operation. 1 -The success of this highgrading project, ironically, is also one of the reasons·w~ were retired into involuntary unemployment by a county committed to the construction of~ hightech, failure-prone' facility for centralized resource recovery. The highgrading project we designed is still going on-albe,it in a crippled, inefficient form-but it now pays the salary of the former director of the Division of Solid Waste, who bailed out I of the county's ill-fated experiment in gar~age grinding before its final collapse, and into the arms of the largest private garbage-hauling contractor in the area. Casting a little light on such paradoxical behavior is one·of the tasks of this article. Waste Knots The spotter function was a real education in value. The thing that still haunts me the most is the occasional boxes I saw • bearing assorted bottles of biocides-th.e kind you used to buy in the supermarket and now banned by the Environmental Protection Agency bei::ause they contained dioxins-all' nearly full. The people who were dumping these boxes of liquid poisons thought they were doing a goo1 thing: they were organic growers who had no use for pesticides and wanted to remove them from the homes they had moved into. And so these undesirables were intentionally consigned to the tender care of the Division of Solid Waste., not unlike the 30-gallon herbicide barrels someone tried tq recycle through the metals recovery station one day, clearly labelled: DESTRO}( BY BURYING IN A SAFE PLACE. What would happen next, I knew too well, was that some of the b9ttles would break after being thrown ten feet into the bottom of the pit, leaking their contents into the paper, food, wood, dirt and general disorder contained down there. The remainder would likely not survive the Terex tractor/ compactor's inexorable push to the end of the pit, or the second drop down into the big White live-bottom transfer trucks that haul the well-mixed refuse to the county's new, .experimental garbage mountain rising on the slopes of Short Mountain, whose collected waters- including small quantities of the leachate that has started squishing out of the rotten pile -drain down into Camas Swale, out into the south fork of the Willamette River, and back through Eugene on their way out to the Pacific Ocean. What do.you.think? Is Short Mountain a safe place for these -biocides and their containers? Salvage? Just Try To ... Here is another telli~g scene I witnessed from the:; catwalk at the end ~f the transfer pit at GlenwoQd: A woman was unloading two good,' but old-fashioned, doors from her car. Next . to her, 1. young mm had just completed throwing his load into t'he pit, was straightening up, and saw those doors about to go
over. Obviously, he wanted to ask her for them, but was indecisive. Chances are she would have given the doors to him, surprised that anyone would want them, but all the same glad to avoid the waste. But he didn't get the words out in time. The doors went down. In fact, bound and determined to run its disposal operations efficiently, the Solid Waste Division can get downright mean when well-intentioned recyclers and other rule-breakers try to salvage valuable materials on their way to the pits. In a great many ways its purpose is to explicitly discourage salvage in favor of disposal. The designs invested in- like those at Glenwood Solid Waste Center and the rural sites, at Short By Dan Knapp Turning Waste into Wealth Mountain and back through a succession of landfills-amount to an increasingly mechanized and centralized disposal system. This is what the fancy words Solid Waste Management reduce to in practice. Yet disposal is a myth. When you dispose of something, it still goes someplace. A wastebasket, a toilet, a drop box, a sewerline, a landfill, even an incinerator-these are places. Things disposed of continue to exist-and continue to matter. Manic Disposal: End of the Landfill Era Here are some national trend data on garbage, so you can see that our county is hardly alone in the mania for "disposal": • The total volume of solid waste from mining, agricultural, municipal, industrial and sewage treatment activities is at least 2.8 billion tons a year and could be as much as 4 billion tons. This volume is increasing at a rate five times greater than the country's population. • Municipal solid waste-the most difficult category of waste to manage-is the fourth-largest type by volume and increasing by 8 percent annually. • In urban areas where approximately 74 percent of the total population now lives, solid waste has doubled in volume in the last twenty years. While some 90 percent of the nation's waste is disposed of on the land, nearly half of all major cities will exhaust their landfill c-apacity within five years. • Applying the current $27 per ton collection and disposal costs to our present waste volume, the annual national cost for solid waste management is about $7.8 billion, the third largest local expenditure funded from local revenues. If the 1985 projected costs of $50 per ton holds true, the fiscal impact of waste management on local government will be devasta.ting. July 1979 RAIN Page 11 • One great advantage of biological nutrient recycling over incineration schemes is that it can be done in smaller, more decentralized facilities located closer.to the source of waste generation. This, inherently, is more efficient-especially wlien a high-quality end product and effective public education increase public acceptance and use of the humus and other forms of high-grade stored energy that are produced from the organic wastes. • It is common practice to dispose of toxic materials at disposal sites not designed for hazardous waste disposal. Pits, ponds, and lagoons are often used for long-term storage or permanent disposal of liquid and hazardous wastes, and simple roadside disposal of hazardous wastes occurs as well. Although a large portion of buried solid waste is biodegradable, a small hut significant portion of our waste volume-3 7 million tonsis extremely dangerous and capable of causing virtually permanent damage to our environment. 2 Caught in the Act Waste planners will tell you that nothing less than a system for disposing of the total volume of mixed waste is worthy of their attention. In sewage treatment circles, this is called the "baseline alternative," and it is the bottom line when it gets down to what the public's money is used to finance. Typically, all other smaller-scale methods, including recycling in its myriad forms, are rejected on the way to the Big Machine or the Big Burner. Either/Or, One-Best-Option at its best-the thought process is pure reductio ad absurdum. Here are some actual examples of waste planners in their act of exercising Either/Or, One-Best-Option logic to eliminate all small-scale, decentralized systems from consideration: A personal favorite of mine is the set of working assumptions outlined by J.J. Troyan and D.P. Norris, engineers for the firm of Brown and Caldwell, in their cost-effectiveness study of "Alternatives for Small Wastewater Treatment Systems," paid for with a substantial grant and disseminated at public expense as a part of the EPA's Technology Transfer Seminar Program. Under the heading of Problem Conditions, Troyan and Norris recite the Catechism of sewage disposal: "To evaluate on-site sewage disposal systems and nonconventional community collection systems, three basic premises should be borne in mind: ... if site conditions are suitable, the conventional septic/ soil absorption system is the best type of on-site disposal system. ... if costs are reasonable, a conventional gravity sewagecollection system is the best type of community system. ... a conventional gravity collection system is the accepted standard for community sani.tation against which all alternatives should be measured." There you have it! While setting up their methodology for reviewing alternative sewage systems, authors Troyan and Norris manage to eliminate all waterless systems (primarily composting toilets), as well as most smaller, on-site biological water treatment systems, such as lagoons, greenhouse aquaculture systems and recirculating sand filters from consideration! The rest of the book is an examination of the comparative economics of grnvity versus pressure sewers, both of which usually assume conventional treatment. This citation has a special poignancy for me, as it has been utilized by Lane County's Water Pollution Control Division in bypassing serious consideration of on-site, small-scale nutrient recycling systems for local, small-town applications we have supported, and pushing ahead with standard sewer engineering. And what are the consequences? A sewer system for water-borne wastes is the precise anallogue of the open disposal pit for solid wastes-only it isn't open. It's a web of pipe underground and it has lots of small openings instead of one big one. Anybody can-and does- • dump just about anything liquid into sewers. Everything gets
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