Left Turn on Bird Street

Cows to replace people in Kansas

By Dan Gougherty

Last week I attended the World Ag Expo in Tulare, Calif. Let’s get something straight right from the start – yes there are liberals, be it a small numbers involved in the American ag industry.

The World Ag Expo might be best described as the ag industries annual Woodstock. There are products and services for every conceivable ag need. You can buy everything from manure spreaders for diary farms to crop insurance for citrus crops.

For me one of the most interesting aspects of the expo is visiting these vendors. One vendor that was particularly interesting was a civic group from Western Kansas sent to recruit dairy operations away from California.

While California is probably best known for its high-tech and entertainment industries, California is the largest dairy state in the union. Additionally, by some measures California total ag industry is the largest industry in the state.

As with many things, California leads the nation in environmental controls on dairies. When most people think of a dairy they might conjure up an image of a farmer sitting on a stool milking one or two cows. Nothing could be further from the truth.

California dairies are major operations that often have thousands of milk cows. As one might expect, they have the potential to be major polluters. They produce major amounts of manure, dirty water and in all seriousness, are major air polluters because of the methane gas produced by cows.

To protect the air and water, California has very strict environmental requirements for dairy operations. It is these strong environmental protections that the West Kansans see an opportunity to lure operations away from California.

According to the West Kansans, their state offers many advantages to dairy operators willing to relocate from California. Among them are cheaper land, a streamlined permitting process, and the linchpin, less stringent environmental regulations.

Coincidently at them time of the expo, the state of Kansas was getting some national attention. The attention stemmed from efforts to have the so-called “intelligent design” theory of creationism taught in Kansas public schools.

It should be noted that 77 of the 105 counties in Kansas have lost population in recent years. The only growth, and it is tepid at that, has been in the states few urban areas.

While there are several reasons why it is losing population, I can’t help but wonder if this loss stems in part from the lack of economic opportunity for young people. Aside for being a major agricultural state, Kansas is not known for being the home to any other major industries that would retain, let alone attract well-educated people to the state.

Conversely, lack of economic opportunity usually leads to a brain-drain. Furthermore, skilled employers are usually attracted to areas with a well-educated populace. Fewer brainiacs, fewer high paying brainiac jobs.

So while Kansas contemplates a major step backward in their move to establish their own American madrassas and possibly accelerate the brain-drain, there is one hopeful sign for Kansans. If the well intentioned folks I met from West Kansas are successful, at least they will have a lot more cows to pollute their water, dirty their air and of course, to milk.