The Democratic front-runners in the presidential race have a lot in common and some big differences. But whether any of them will address the real issues facing young and beginning farmers and ranchers is still an open question.

Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barak Obama made separate appearances at Saturday’s National Summit on Agriculture and Rural Life at Iowa State University in Ames. Clinton appeared via web cam, while Edwards and Obama actually showed up for the event, sponsored by the League of Rural Voters and the Main Street Project. All three stressed the importance of mandatory country-of-origin meat labeling, essentially repeating one another’s position on that issue word-for-word. But not all Clinton’s, Edwards’ and Obama’s positions on agriculture were identical.

Clinton, for example, emphasized the importance of local food systems. She suggested greater connections between local ag producers and built-in markets for their products.

“Where we look at cooperatives, where we have more linkages between what local farmers produce and what local institutions like hospitals, nursing homes, schools, and colleges buy,” Clinton said. “We can create a network of rural economic development activity.”

Obama called for a $250,000 dollar hard cap on farm program payments. And he promised to re-focus USDA on helping the nation’s farmers and ranchers.

“When I’m President, I’ll have a department of agriculture, not simply a department of agri-business,” Obama vowed.

Edwards, for his part, railed against the destructive influence on American agriculture of what he called “corporate farms.” He blamed corporate farming for a variety of ills, including degradation of the rural environment and inflation of land prices.

“One of the things that’s driving them up are these big corporate farming operations that come in, take over the farms, take over the land,” Edwards aid. “And by the way, a lot of the money does not end up in the local economy.”

Brownfield asked Edwards what he meant, exactly, by corporate farms. After all, might not some family farms, if they grew large enough, become corporate farms?

“Yeah, but not because they choose to,” Edwards responded.

Brownfield asked Edwards to further clarify his position. He described the difference between family and corporate farming this way.

“Family farmers are the people who’ve worked, in many cases, for generations on the land to build a life for themselves and for their families,” Edwards explained. “These big corporate farming operations, in many cases, they’re getting millions of dollars in subsidies.”

Edwards also backs a nationwide moratorium on the construction or expansion of new livestock facilities. And he told the crowd Saturday his opposition to corporate farming is a big reason why.

“I think we need a national moratorium on CAFOs – these concentrated animal feeding operations – so that we’re not expanding them and we’re not building new ones,” Edwards said. “I mean, you look at what’s happened to hog farms here in the state of Iowa – we have 50,000-plus less hog farms here than we had not very long ago – and it’s all because these big corporate farming operations are doing it – they’re doing it in CAFOs.”

Clinton, Edwards and Obama all promised to help young farmers and ranchers get started, and some of those they promised to help were at Saturday’s event. One of them was 22 year-old community activist Ingrid Vick of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Vick told Brownfield she grew up in rural Minnesota and wants to return there to start a small, perhaps organic farm. From her perspective, candidates who take a big-picture view of rural issues catch her interest.

“A lot of what I look for in what the candidates are speaking to is an idea of systems thinking,” Vick said. “All of these issues are connected in some way or another, and if we don’t approach them in a holistic, non-partisan approach, it’s not going to work.”

William and Crystal Powers, a young married couple from Lincoln, Nebraska, also attended Saturday’s event. William Powers grew up on an Ohio dairy farm. Crystal Powers is an ag engineer specializing in livestock systems at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Like Vick, they also want to begin farming.

“We want to start a small farm ourselves,” said Crystal Powers. “We’re kind of looking for avenues of how to do that – find people that have been successful at doing that.”

The couple identified a number of barriers to entering farming, including access to capital and affordable land. William Powers summed up the obstacles stopping them in a single sentence.

“I think the biggest problem is money.”

Crystal Powers said she thinks the Bush administration’s plans for helping beginning farmers and ranchers are a good start. But she said the real issue is developing fair, local markets for the food young farmers and ranchers produce. And neither the Powers nor Ingrid Vick has made a decision on next year’s Presidential election as yet.

Related Links: League of Rural Voters http://www.leagueofruralvoters.org/