Everyday people will tell you something early and often: “I never agreed that giving Corporate Ag access to all our groundwater was a good idea.” We also hear, “Politicians and bureaucrats let corporations take all the groundwater. They said it was a good idea–not me.” If folk ever were naive about the reason Corporate Ag is rolling over them, that’s not …
In case anybody’s wondering, here are: A Few of Our Demands 1- A countywide negotiation/convention with the three biggest corporate agribusinesses. Everyday people will comprise two-thirds of the delegates. 2- Crafting a people’s sustainable groundwater policy in alignment with the universal (for Cochise County, at least) assertion that: There’s enough for everyone’s need but not …
When Corporate Ag robs everyday people, it’s called business. When everyday people fight back, what do we call it? Self-defense. Most people want stability. Cochise County is no exception. Corporate Ag is destabilizing our local economy. It’s raising the specter of a human-made Death Valley. “Property rights” once meant you had a right to your …
There once was an ag corporation. One day, its CEO spoke to its investors and financiers: “Let’s gather our finances and go to a distant land. There we’ll buy up so many ranches so fast that we’ll be a big player from day one. I’ve found a county in Arizona where we can mine all …
When it comes to the groundwater crisis in Cochise County, can we depend on the politicians? Will our elected leaders and state agencies do the right thing? The politics we have now and the politics we’d like to have are polar opposites. What we see in a movie like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) has no …
Often it’s a cartoon like the one above that inspires the updates we send to you. Lately, it’s the humor of full-time farmer and humorist Rick Friday that triggers a smile and a laugh. Humor, done well, is a uniter–not a divider. Rick used to write for Farm News, but in 2016 his wit fell afoul …
Few people make an argument against our need to preserve groundwater. Corporate Ag is attacking with reckless abandon the aquifers of Cochise County. If we don’t do something now, there’ll be no groundwater for future generations. Most people we talk to know what the problem is, but some have a hard time getting off the …
This is a special appeal to our friends in Douglas Basin: Elfrida, Douglas, Bisbee. We have supporters and organizers throughout the Basin. We’re for a People’s Demand for an immediate end of groundwater mining. What’s groundwater mining? It’s mega-pumping done on an industrial scale. Only the ag corporations are doing this. Our demand only affects Corporate Ag. …
The goal of our campaign is to save and recharge the aquifers of Cochise County . That’s our only issue. To achieve positive change on our groundwater woes, we must connect with regular people at a deep level. We need to be working with folk and not working around them. Only collective action will get us where we need to go. Solo action made be …
Cochise County isn’t a poor county. We live in a county that keeps people poor. It’s easy to see how elected leaders and hired experts in the county apparatus treat the majority of us. (Of course, there’s blame at the state and federal level.) Who benefits from the bounty Mother Nature has given us? Who …
