Behold, the power of paraphrase: Tim Miller spins own "social license to farm" scary rhetoric

The "Social License" outrage

Yesterday, we watched both the morning and afternoon hearings on farming and climate by the Minnesota House Agriculture and Food Finance and Policy Division--some of it livestreaming, but also reviewing the morning and afternoon sessions on the Minnesota House Information service's YouTube channel.

Mostly, the hearing's testifiers were talking about the ways Minnesota farmers were rising to the challenges created by climate change. It wasn't a rip session against agriculture by any means. Watch the video archives.

Thus we were a bit surprised to read this post by Representative Tim Miller on his campaign Facebook page (captured in the screengrab at the top of this post)

What do you think?

The House Ag Committee, of which I am a member, is holding informational hearings today primarily around farming’s negative impact on the environment and ways in which producers can do better. A presenter from the Department of Agriculture said something thought provoking that I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

He said (paraphrased), “I think it’s important policies in Minnesota government provide an avenue for farmers to earn a social license to farm.”

My question is, are farmers required to get a “social license to farm”? What do you think that means?

The phrase "social license to farm" is perhaps more common than Representative Miller knew. Our socialist friends at the American Farm Bureau Federation wrote in Defending Our Right to Farm:

Our right to farm is under attack. I’m not talking about attacks from state laws. Think of this in the context of our social license to farm. We see this threat in varying degrees nationwide, but it’s something farmers need to face head on. ...

Our social license to our livelihoods – our right to farm – is being commandeered by the children and grandchildren of those who chose to leave farms to work in air-conditioned offices. . . .

The phrase also shows up in the article Gene Editing: It's an Evolution, not a Revolution:

The Coalition for Responsible Gene Editing in Agriculture, formed by the Center for Food Integrity in 2016 as a partnership of stakeholders who share a vision of global acceptance for the responsible use of gene editing in agriculture and food, understands that building trust in gene editing is essential so that the food system has the social license to use the technology in a responsible matter.

Hope Representative Miller can take that rhetoric up with the Bureau.

The MDA testimony

But was that phrase in the MDA staffer's testimony? We've reviewed the MDA testimony and sought the source of Miller's paraphrase. We opened the transcript feature in YouTube and found the "social license" discussion that begins around the 41:13 point in the video; the phrase "social license to participate in the market" begins at 41:48.

It's not a "social license to farm" that Peder Kjeseth, Minnesota Department of Agriculture Government Relations Director, is talking about. He's discussing the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program as a means to participate in the market for climate migitation efforts.

As Kjeseth said , the notion is to pay "the growers who are earning this value through their actions...that value..should be monetized," rather than creating a reward system to get farmers to clean up their act. He said, "they're creating a stewardship level to earn the right...a social license to participate in the market" for their actions.

Here's the clip, which we start at the 41:00 mark and end at 43:19:

Perhaps Representative Miller could have waited until the video archives were posted and provided an exact quotation of the remarks, rather than asking his Facebook followers what they thought his own paraphrase meant. Here are some samples from his colleagues in the Minnesota legislature:

Jerry Hertaus It means that multi-national farm interests would like to erect fences around an enterprise by enlisting the force of government to eliminate smaller interest (less capitalized) competition and control the world's food supply with the blessing of ( choosing winners and loser) government. 

Jeremy Munson The war on ag is endless.

Mark Koran Interesting. The Governor said the same for a variety of businesses. When we specifically asked his Commerce Commissioner how someone would obtain a social permit and they had no answers! Socialists!!!

Miller's various caucus's social media assets are sharing and spreading the paraphrase. The Minnesota RFL Caucus shared the post here and the New House Republican Caucus shared it here.

 

Now, one might not like the idea that there's a market for stewardship, but that's another discussion.

 

Jeepers. Who knew that the Minnesota Agricultural Water Quality Certification Program was part of the "War on Ag."Someone better warn the Trump Administration that it's helping to raise the red flag in rural Minnesota. As the Wahpeton/Breckenridge Daily News reports in the news brief, Feds award $9M to Minnesota ag water program:

Minnesota’s agricultural water quality program was awarded $9 million in federal funding on Friday, Nov. 8, the state Department of Agriculture announced.

The five-year grant is the second that the program has received since 2015 through a U.S. Department of Agriculture conservation partnership. Founded in 2014, the state Water Quality Certification Program has accredited an estimated 800 farms for their efforts to meet Minnesota water conservation standards.

Practices that the program encourages are aimed at reducing soil displacement caused by agricultural runoff, as well as phosphorous leaching and nitrogen loss. They are used across from 550,000 acres of Minnesota farm land, according to the state agriculture department.

State environmental officials have said that conservation practices benefit both farmers and the environment. Strip-tilling, for example, is thought to use less fuel — meaning that farmers don’t have to buy as much of it while simultaneously cutting back on their emissions.

In a statement, a state agricultural department spokesperson said that the USDA funding will go to the farms themselves for the implementation of water conservation practices.

We had no idea Sonny Perdue had enlisted in the War on Ag.

As for Miller's characterization of the committee hearing as "primarily around farming’s negative impact on the environment and ways in which producers can do better," we offer the full videos of both sessions below. Mostly, the information and testimony was positive about farmers' ability to address climate change. 

Indeed, during the afternoon session's presentation by University of Minnesota Extension, Miller comments on a new staff member's inclusion of pattern tiling as a tool, which prompts South St. Paul rep and Harmony farmer Rick Hansen to ask the staff if she were aware of Gyles Randall's decades of studies of tiling.

Here's the morning session:

Here's the afternoon, which is largely testimony from farmers and others about what they're doing in the field. Bluestem has been to two of the testifiers' farms.

Update: At Session Daily, Jonathan Mohr covered the morning session of the hearing in Agriculture division discusses climate change at first 2020 hearing.

Screengrab: Tim Miller's Facebook fantods about his own paraphrase. Why understand a phrase when you can demogogue about it?

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[bjr]

"you know much that is hidden, O Tim"
-Monty Python and the Holy Grail