Grassroots Organizations and the ‘Sugar Creek Gang’
Post-Civil War economic hardships hit farmers in the 1870s, who complained about a shortage of capital and about prices of crops due to transportation costs. The postwar Depression led to the founding of the Populist Movement as well as farmers’ clubs and Granges, all examples of engagement of the engagement of the farming population which helps farmers help themselves and their community, while not relying on big government.1 In the 1910s, local and state-wide farm bureaus developed as grassroots organizations including a national farm bureau in 1919, which represented farmer interests and values in all levels of government. In recent years, the tradition of farmers’ distrust in government regulation has continued, despite issues that demand actions, such as conservation. To address these issues, farmers have worked with scientists and researchers to form grassroots organizations.
In 1998, Wayne County farmers were shocked and embarrassed to hear an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA) study named the Sugar Creek watershed, which covers 357 miles across four counties including Wayne County, as one of two most “impaired” watersheds in Ohio—mostly because they didn’t believe that the OEPA study was accurate.2 Farmers in Wayne County have held themselves as stewards of the land they farm, protecting God’s creation, fostering the Wayne County farming community and values of family, and upholding their independence from an intrusive government.3 To the dismay of the Sugar Creek farmers, land use, including agricultural activity, stream bank modifications, and a lack of riparian diversity polluted the watershed.4
A welcome sign on the Ramseyer potato farm, open to the public in autumn. One of the Sugar Creek Partners, Arden Ramseyer mentioned the importance of family and community-engagement, values which are clear through his business and are common to the Partners.
In 2000, local farmers teamed up with researchers from the Agroecosystems Management Program and the OARDC to combat pollution in the watershed.5 This group would become the Sugar Creek Partners, a learning circle made up completely of informally-selected livestock and grain producers with mid-sized farms. The Partners held informal meetings to discuss current issues, water quality analyses, and education programs.6 They did not trust in the EPA or regulatory agencies and remained wary of the OEPA study but ultimately decided that they would try to improve the watershed even if the study was disproven after farmers tested their own farms. Because of the grassroots efforts, many landowners on the Upper Sugar Creek have successfully adopted conservation practices.7
The Partners’ success is unique to Wayne County—grassroots watershed activist groups don’t usually adopt long-term plans and often ignore local social dynamics. Professors Mark Weaver, Richard Moore, and Jason Shaw Parker at the College of Wooster and the Ohio State University engaged in studies involving surveys and interviews to understand why the Partners’ grassroots watershed activism was successful. They concluded that focusing on the needs and values of local farmers and the subsequent creation of group solidarity led to the group’s success.8
Researchers and farmers navigated the predatory system to enact change in their community by focusing on the main values of Ohioan farmers—individualism, stewardship, trust in God, and community—and ignoring methods that farmers distrust—namely, regulatory agencies at the state- or federal-level.
Even when appealing to farmers’ values like stewardship, it is difficult to encourage grassroots activism because it requires difficult sacrifices from farmers.
Heidi Rennecker, a farmer in Smithville, OH, mentioned in an interview that it was challenging to adapt to conservation efforts in the watershed: “[It] wasn’t cheap; we had to take it away from our personal living expenses. Most people wouldn’t do that.”9
“I put the environment pretty high on my list,” added Brian Rennecker, her husband.
Even in this small farming community, pollution in the watershed will affect hundreds of thousands of Americans. In the recent past, grassroots watershed activism in Wayne County has been particularly successful in identifying and working with farmer values to enact lasting change that will benefit farmers’ families and communities solely because activists have paid attention to farmers’ real values instead of their predicted values.
Overall, farmers in Ohio generally view themselves as independent of government influence, but dependent on their local farming community, who share their values of the importance of family and religion, and stewardship of the land. Despite farmers' distrust in big government and self-proclaimed independence from government, farmers have relied on land and subsidies from the federal government since settlers arrived in Ohio. When given the opportunity, such as with Sugar Creek Partners, farmers work together to enact change. The Sugar Creek Partners are an example of the way farmers have shaped political efforts. While not completely independent of governmental influence, these efforts prove the most effective at change, because it is farmers, dependent on their own community, not government, who work together to further their goals. Through this model, farmers may view themselves as mostly independent from the government, but dependent on their community.
1 Fred A Shannon, The Farmer’s Last Frontier: Agriculture, 1860-1897, vol. 5, The Economic History of the United States (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1945), 294-338; William Turner, Ohio Farm Bureau Story, 1919-1979 (Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, Inc., 1982), 9-12.
2 Mark Weaver, Richard Moore, and Jason Parker, “Understanding Grassroots Stakeholders and Grassroots Stakeholder Groups: The View from the Grassroots in the Upper Sugar Creek,” (paper presented at the American Political Science Association, Washington D.C., September 2005): 14; Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Biological and Water Quality Study of Sugar Creek, 1998 (July 15, 2000) 30; Weaver, Moore, and Parker. “A Farmer Learning Circle: The Sugar Creek Partners, Ohio,” in Pathways for Getting to Better Water Quality: The Citizen Effect, edited by Lois Wright Morton and Susan S. Brown (New York, NY: Springer New York, 2011), 203; Moore, Parker, and Weaver, “Agricultural Sustainability, Water Pollution, and Governmental Regulations: Lessons from the Sugar Creek Farmers in Ohio,” Culture & Agriculture 30 nos. 1-2 (2008): 7.
3 Moore et al., “Sustainability,” 5; Weaver et al., “Grassroots,” 16-19; Weaver et al., “Learning Circle,” 209.
4 OEPA, Sugar Creek, 11.
5 Weaver et al., “Grassroots,” 2.
6 Moore Et al., “Sustainability,” 10; Parker, Moore, and Weaver, “Developing Participatory Models of Watershed Management in the Sugar Creek Watershed (Ohio, USA),” Water Alternatives 2 no.1 (2009): 90.
7 Moore et al., “Sustainability,” 9-10; Weaver et al., “Grassroots,” 12, 15.
8 Moore et al., “Sustainability,” 9, 10; Parker et al., “Watershed Management,” 90, 96.
9 Heidi and Brian Rennecker, “In Our Own Words: Residents of Smithville and the Smithville area Tell Their Stories,” interview by Margaux Day and William Burton, June 29, 2005.