A dear friend of IATP has passed away. Merle Hanson was a farmer whose gentle and loving way taught a whole generation of farm activists what democracy meant. If you read his obituary, you will see that his life describes the sweep of history that covers modern agriculture in its entirety. At each phase, from farm strikes to presidential campaigns, Merle was always present to represent farmers and to ensure that justice was at the root of all we did.
For those of us who came to the farm movement in the 1970s, Merle was the crucial bridge between the old New Deal farm movement of the 1930s, Farmers Union, the National Farmers Organization and the emerging sustainable agriculture movement. The Cold War and red scares of the 1950s and '60s had driven many progressives away from social movements. This was true across the entire spectrum of social movements in the United States. When a new generation of activists appeared in the 1960s and '70s, progressive leaders like Merle were few and far between. It took real courage to stand up to the fear-mongering and anti-Communism that dominated the nation. Merle introduced young farm activists to the old leaders who had created the successful farm programs of the New Deal. He and his family in Newman Grove, Neb., were our link back to the old prairie populists. It was Merle who taught us the importance of learning from those who came before and the need to keep moving forward, never losing sight of what was worth fighting for.
No matter what decade, no matter what struggle farmers were going through, Merle was always there. I’ve lost track of dates, but I remember a night in the mid-'70s, in the small town of Defiance, Iowa, where a couple hundred angry farm families were gathered at a Catholic church to kick off a tractor rally that would take them to Washington, D.C. The organizers of the tractorcade—the leaders of a new farm organization called the American Agriculture Movement (AAM)—asked to meet with Merle and Fred Stover, an Iowa farm leader, after the meeting. I was invited along to help with the nighttime driving.
The AAM guys had called on farmers from all over the country to drive their tractors across the country to Washington to tell the government that all was not well back on the farm, and they had thousands getting ready to drive. That night in Defiance, the local priest had the crowd so worked up that I started edging toward the door, fearing something violent would happen. We all knew this level of outrage and desperation was being felt in every farm community in the country. After the rally, we met the AAM leaders at a motel on the edge of town. They were a little nervous, about six or seven big guys all standing against the wall, nobody feeling comfortable enough to sit on the bed. After a few minutes of hemming and hawing one of them finally said, “Well, we hear you fellows are little pink, but we need your help. We’ve got a lot of people ready to go to Washington, but we don’t know what to ask for when we get there. We know it’s not working, but we need some help saying what it is we want the government to do.”
There was a short silence as we let the pink comment pass and then Fred and Merle went through some farm policy history, and how we got into the mess we were in. Fred said Merle was the best person to help them out in Washington, and without hesitation Merle agreed to go. He helped shape their campaign for parity—the concept that farmers should receive a fair price for the food and fiber they produce.
There will be so many stories told about Merle in the coming months, and I hope to hear as many of them as possible. For instance, I look forward to hearing again from Arie van den Brand, IATP’s board chair from the Netherlands, about the summer he spent driving across the Midwest in an RV with Merle, going farm to farm to talk with people—lots of stories there. Merle’s life was full of grace and wit and love. He gave those of us with so much less experience and knowledge the hope and belief that our actions do make a difference.
