The Small-Town Beekeeper Facing Down Big Ag
A conversation with rural Wisconsin beekeeper Kristy Lynn Allen.
Maximillian Alvarez
A proposed concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in Burnett County, Wisconsin, is slated to house 26,000 hogs and produce millions of gallons of liquid manure every year. Residents fear the irreparable damage a facility of that size could do to their air, land, and waterways, as well as to their property values and the local economy, and many fear there’s nothing they can do to stop it. But a diverse coalition of farmers, community members, and environmental advocates is fighting back to protect their homes, their ways of life, and what remains of the independent farming economy. As part of a special collaboration between The Real News Network and In These Times magazine for “The Wisconsin Idea,” Max, Cameron Granadino (TRNN), and Hannah Faris (In These Times) travelled to Burnett County over the summer to speak with residents about their concerns and about their struggles against Big Agriculture and the factory farming industry. In this interview, Max talks with local farmer and beekeeper Kristy Lynn Allen about the damage the industrialization of farming has done to agriculture in general, and about the damage the new CAFO would do specifically to farmers like her. Allen is the founder of The Beez Kneez, LLC, and serves as president of the local chapter of the Wisconsin Farmers Union.
Additional links/info below…
- The Beez Kneez website and Twitter page
- Working People, “Hog Wild (w/ Lisa Doerr, Forest Jahnke, Hannah Faris, & Maeve Conran)”
- Maximillian Alvarez, Cameron Granadino, & Hannah Faris, The Real News Network, “Factory Farms Pose an ‘Existential Threat’ for Rural Wisconsin Communities”
- Maeve Conran, Just Solutions, “Rural Wisconsin Communities Battle Industrial Scale Hog Farms”
- Simon Davis-Cohen, In These Times, “ ‘In for a Fight’: Rural Wisconsinites Resist Influx of Industrial Hog Facilities”
Permanent links below…
- Working People Patreon page
- Leave us a voicemail and we might play it on the show!
- Labor Radio / Podcast Network website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- In These Times website, Facebook page, and Twitter page
- The Real News Network website, YouTube channel, podcast feeds, Facebook page, and Twitter page
Featured Music (all songs sourced from the Free Music Archive: freemusicarchive.org)
- Jules Taylor, “Working People Theme Song”
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Maximillian Alvarez is editor-in-chief at the Real News Network and host of the podcast Working People, available at InTheseTimes.com. He is also the author of The Work of Living: Working People Talk About Their Lives and the Year the World Broke.
