29. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

The following paragraphs are found in their context on the Issues page & on the earlier blog post “Farmers Applaud Failure of Trade Talks” — but I thought they were an important enough theme in our campaign that they should be a stand alone statement as well

One of the underlying trends in both on the American scene & in international geo-politics is the growing rift between “rural / small-town” & “urban / suburban” interests.

The Red-Blue politcal maps that everyone keeps shoving in our faces is just the tip of the iceberg The limosine liberals ultimately want to empty the countryside and turn the Great Plains into a big buffalo park. (Sort of like Stalin.)

So-called conservatives see God’s creation as nothing but “resources” and rural / small-town people as nothing but “cheap labor” to build make their brick-a-brack; consumers to fuel their “global economy” at Wal Mart; and “brave men & women” to fight their wars.

By and large our local customs & slow-paced lifestyles are seen as backwards.

Sadly, many well-meaning folks who want to help their communities play right into the hands of the “progressives” who want to turn their small towns into McTowns.

Ultimately, the way the elitists deal with the threat of an awakening among the “sheeple” in the countryside who just want to be left alone is to do what Marxist do best : “Divide & Conquer.”

They set the “big farmers” against the “small farmers.” Organic vs conventional. Hunters against producers. Enviormentalists vs those who live on the land. Economic development vs traditon.

With Riley as Ag Commissioner we will work together as neighbors for the good of our state, communities, & families.

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29. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

Our neighbors across the state line help promote their state’s farmers, help their economy, and display their state’s beauty to the world by promoting Agri-tourism. There’s no reason we cannot do the same thing here. It’s all about vision

http://www.alabamaagritourism.com/

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29. August 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

This is an interesting piece from Sid Salter of the Clarion Ledger that highlights the unsung — but vital place that Agricuture plays in our state economy.
Of particular interest is this statement :

– and it’s an industry that operates without all the multi-million-dollar taxpayer incentives granted to Nissan and Toyota.

It’s about time that agriculture regained some of it’s formerly high esteem in our state’s culture & economy — and we don’t need $55 million dollar boondoggles to do it !

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007708220330

August 22, 2007

Still looking for the ‘country Nissan?’ It’s already operating

By Sid Salter
ssalter@clarionledger.com

One of the most recognizable phrases in Mississippi politics over the last decade has been that of state officials finding the mythical “country Nissan” - an industry that would be the rural equivalent of the mammoth auto plants in Blue Springs and Canton.

The $1.3 billion Toyota automotive plant at Blue Springs will employ 2,000 people and has the expectation of landing Mississippi more top-tier automotive manufacturing suppliers for the plant to bring another 2,000 to 3,000 jobs to the state.

Using MDA numbers, the Nissan plant, which opened in 2003, has a network of 186 Mississippi suppliers with nearly 25,000 employees. Nissan directly employs about 4,000 and has an annual capacity of 400,000 vehicles, far more than the 2,000 employees and 150,000 annual capacity in Toyota’s planned first phase in Mississippi.

But the state’s aggressive yet ill-fated effort to establish what politicians called “the country Nissan” in the form of the failed $55 million Mississippi Beef Processors plant in rural Yalobusha County ended in economic and political disaster.

Last week, Mississippi Beef Processors Inc. president Richard Hall Jr. was sentenced to eight years in federal prison for his part in the beef plant fiasco and five years probation. Hall was ordered to make restitution of more than $751,000, the maximum sentence allowed under federal guidelines.

While the finger-pointing and recriminations from the beef plant’s failure continue, the fact remains that Mississippi has had a “country Nissan” all along.

It’s called the Mississippi poultry industry - and it’s an industry that operates without all the multi-million-dollar taxpayer incentives granted to Nissan and Toyota.

Clearly, this writer is more than a little biased about the industry. I live in Forest in the very heart of the state’s poultry industry and I’m friends with poultry growers and poultry processing company executives alike.

I go to church with them and meet them in Wal-Mart and the grocery store. People passing through Forest, Morton, Sebastopol, Carthage, Laurel, Canton, Hattiesburg, Hazlehurst, McComb and the rest of the poultry industry’s whistle stops across the state still complain about the smell.

But as my banker taught me years ago, those feed mills, processing plants and broiler houses smell pretty good - they smell like money for Mississippians.

The Mississippi poultry industry racked up sales in excess of $2.4 billion in 2005, according to an economic impact study just completed by Mississippi State University.

In doing so, the industry directly employed over 24,000 people and indirectly employed another 23,000 people. The payroll from those jobs exceeded $1 billion.

From the broiler houses to the serving table, it’s hard work up and down the line. For every chicken Ceasar salad served with a nice chardonnay in a toney northeast Jackson restaurant, there’s a farm family growing the birds, a truck load of workers catching them, workers toiling on the kill lines and in the cold of the processing and freezer operations.

Trucking operations run 24 hours a day getting the product from farm to market.

While industrial diversification remains key for Mississippi’s future, policy makers would do well to remember that the state’s agricultural base is still capable of creating vast wealth through further processing and value-added products.

Rather than trying to invent a “country Nissan” as was the case with Mississippi Beef Processors, why doesn’t the state invest in fully developing the poultry, catfish, sweet potato, corn and biofuel markets in which Mississippians are already established?

The failed beef plant was a political exercise, not an economic development plan - and it shows.

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Contact Perspective Editor Sid Salter at (601) 961-7084; e-mail ssalter@clarionledger.com; visit his blog at http://www.clarionledger.com/misc/blogs/ssalter/sidblog.html.

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