The New Green Homestead Program
September - October 2020
America is a land of immigrants. Scientists theorized that the first peoples migrated to North America 16,000 to 11,000 years ago from east Asia and Siberia. They came over a land bridge connecting the two continents during an ice age when ocean waters were lower because more of earth’s water was locked in ice glaciers.
By the time north and south America was “discovered“ by European explorers, the Americas were fully populated with multiple tribes, all descendants of the first immigrants.
The explorers “claimed“ possession of the land from the natives. The explorers came seeking gold, silver, minerals and trade routes to the east. Spain, Portugal, England, France, the Dutch were the major countries involved. They each had big ships with big guns backed by big investors either through the royalty class or through private mercantile companies. In America they didn’t find much gold, silver or mineral wealth. Instead they found a vast continent of land occupied by “primitive“ peoples armed only with bows and arrows.
Those ships and investors increasingly brought boatloads of immigrants from Europe to America in the 1600s setting up colonies. The colonies expanded, taking over the native tribal lands. The natives were pushed westward by tricky treaties and by sheer domination by the power and numbers of Europeans.
There was conflict between settlers and tribes and wars between countries over territorial lands.
Colonial claimed lands were controlled mainly by royalty or appointed government actors. The land was given or sold to the well-connected or well financed.
Early on a difference began to appear between southern and northern colonies. The south tended to be developed into large plantations by mercantile companies. Clearing the trees and growing tobacco for export was very labor-intensive. Initially the landowners imported European immigrants as “indentured servant‘s“ to do the labor. The indentured servants would be promised 50 acres of their own land after a period of 3 to 7 years of labor working for the owner class. This was part of what was known as the “headright“ system. Ship captains and landowners took claim to the head rights of immigrants. It was a system prone to abuse. Many indentured servants died.
As time moved on the plantation owners found that it was easier, cheaper, more profitable to use slave labor imported from Africa. Plantations expanded to grow rice, sugar, indigo, and cotton for export and profit making for the plantation owners.
As the southern colonies expanded west it was easier for government controllers of the land to grant or sell the land to the richest. It was mainly the landowners who had governmental influence in the early southern colonies. The southern colonies were dominated by a capitalistic, profit motivational philosophy.
The early northern colonies were settled mainly by Europeans fleeing religious persecution. In Europe, early in the 1500s, Christianity had divided into the Catholics and Lutherans. Lutheranism then subdivided into multiple subdivisions. Many of the subdivisions of Christianity then fought amongst themselves. European immigrants came to the northern colonies to be free to practice their brand of Christianity. They came collectively and set up religious colonies.
The Northerners found a landscape that was more rocky, thinner soil, and a shorter growing season. The colonies were more conducive to small farms and the trades. Northern colonies offered land to settlers. Stories of the new frontier excited would be immigrants from an overcrowded Europe to come to America.
By the middle of the 1700s England had gained control of the Atlantic seacoast of America and had established 13 colonies. Immigrants kept coming from Europe and pushed westward, pushing the natives westward. Colonial lands expanded. Militias were formed to protect settlements. Land squatters pushed the limits of the frontier further westward. Land was given away, granted, bought and sold, stolen and speculated on.
The Revolutionary War was fought and America was formed. The United States as a country expanded into the Northwest Territory and the Southwest Territory. New states were formed and added to the union. States were given much independence on how they dealt with land rights. Wars were fought with Spain, Mexico, France, and various Indian tribes.
By 1850 the United States had seized, won, acquired, and was controlling most of present day America. There was the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the Texas Territory and Annexation of 1845, the Mexican Concession of 1848 following the Mexican American war, and the Oregon Territory treaty formalized in 1846.
The Northern and Southern states started arguing about what to do with all the new lands and territories acquired by the government. The rich plantation and slave owners of the South wanted the new lands to be made into big plantations with slave labor. The northerners thought that democracy would be better served by small family farmer citizens and no slavery. The conflict between these views escalated, resulting in the southern states seceding in 1861 and the start of the Civil War.
During the mid-1800s there existed the free soil party, which advocated opening the western states to homesteaders. Their cause was taken up by the newly formed Republican party in 1854, and they proposed homestead laws for lands west of the Mississippi. The idea was to give independent homesteaders 160, 320, or 640 acres of western land to own, live on, and farm. They rejected slavery, but just as important they were rejecting big land owners.
The Southerners fought and defeated these proposed laws repeatedly. The Southern plantation politicians feared that the laws, if enacted, would encourage more poor European immigrants and poor white southerners to settle the west. That would prevent large scale plantation ownership and slave labor. After the south seceded in 1861, when Abe Lincoln was president, the first Homestead Act was passed and enacted in 1862.
Several similar additional acts were passed through the late 1800s and early 1900s. In fact, in 1938, as part of the New Deal Congress added the Small Tract Act. This allowed citizens to acquire up to 5 acres of certain federal lands for living, small farming, or to open a business.
All in all, the Homestead Acts opened up 160 million acres, or about 10% of the United States, to 1.6 million settlers. For free!
All of America was originally occupied by Native Americans. How it was taken from them is a sad story. Slavery is another sad story, part of America’s history. There was some redemption with the Civil War freeing the slaves. Not only did the Civil War free the slaves, it freed the Western lands to be owned and settled by poor homeless homesteading immigrants, rather than a few wealthy landowners. There’s some redemption there, some bending of the art towards justice. America is in need of more redemption and justice. This Homestead story gives some hope and ideas for the future.
Beginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s new technologies developed that dramatically changed agriculture. The technologies included genetic altering of food plants, irrigation, commercialized fertilizers, pesticides, new farming equipment. Consequently crop production increased phenomenally worldwide. This agricultural transformation became known as the Green Revolution. Consequently, ever since, the size of farming operations have grown while the number of small family farms have diminished. There has been a great migration of the population from rural areas to metropolitan areas. And also consequently small rural towns have gotten smaller.
Take for example the town of Corning, Iowa. My father grew up on a 40 acre farm near there. According to US census records, in 1940 Corning had its highest population of 2162. It has steadily lost residence since then. Corning’s population in 2019 was 1433, a decrease of 729 people.
Or take the town of Blue Earth, Minnesota where I grew up. In 1960 its population was 4200. In 2019 the population was 3106; a loss of 1094. Corning is 99% white and Blue Earth is 96% white.
The story continues. In 1850, 70% of the American population were farmers. In 1920, 30% were farmers. In 2020 it’s 1.3%. Worldwide in the 1800s 3% of the population lived in cities. Today it’s 50%.
In America, 97% of land area is rural, but only 19% of the population live in the rural areas; 81% live in urban and suburban areas crowded into 3% of America’s land mass.
In Iowa the mix is 64% urban and 36% rural. In Iowa and the Midwestern farming states only about 20% of farmers owned and farm their own land. These farmers also tend to rent additional farm acres from land owners who are not farming.
Three-fourths of the farmland in the Midwest is owned by people who do not farm the land. It’s owned by a person, a partnership or a trust, and is rented out. Most of this farmland is owned by retired farmers or non-farming family members. Much of the Homestead lands have been handed down through the years to family members. Some have stayed in rural areas but many have moved to the cities.
The average age of a Midwest farmer is 58 years; 60% of the farmland in the midwest is owned by someone over 65 years old. These numbers are similar to all farmlands in America.
What do all these numbers add up to? Individuals and farmers continue to own most of the farmlands and ranch lands in America rather than large corporations. The owners are, however, aging or old. The farm lands, the rural areas, and the small towns and cities are ripe for an influx of new settlers, immigrants, and refugees from big cities. Perhaps from foreign countries.
America needs a new Homestead Act. This can be part of a New Green Deal. The question is, how can America and the world make this happen?
First, let’s address the question of why America and the world needs a new Homestead Act.
Why?
America and the world is out of balance, particularly environmentally with global warming. In the past 100 years America and the world has shifted from being farmers and rural dwellers to being big city industrial, technological dwellers.
It took humans millions of years to evolve from hunting and gathering cave dwellers to become farmers for a period of 10,000 years. In a matter of 100 years humans have become cubicle city dwellers disconnected from nature. Humans now live virtually in an artificial reality of their own making.
This rapid mutation has created some unhealthy consequences for the earth and for humans. We now face an extreme climate change crisis.
The earth and humanity needs a better proportional mix of city dwellers to rural dwellers. We need to move people back to the country to live in smaller communities and to nourish and farm the land. Reducing the population of big cities will give them a chance to become more livable and sustainable.
Creating more smaller farms will help make the earth more sustainable. By helping more people become more directly involved with nature we can create more love for nature which will help us be better caretakers of the earth and each other.
As climate change continues in the coming years, millions of refugees will be fleeing fires, hurricanes, floods, droughts and disease. They will be looking for safety and new homes. America and the world needs to create a spiritual revolution to cause the political powers to create the programs that will make the great migration occur peacefully and justly.
America and the world has a history of injustice towards indiginous peoples in the way land and resources have been acquired through colonization and domination. In addition, America’s history of slavery is a history of injustice. America’s history of injustice has never yet been made right. A new Homestead Act could include provisions for reparations to Native Americans and African Americans to make amends for wrongs. A new Homestead Act could help heal America’s wounds and be a model for worldwide restorative justice and reconciliation.
How?
The new Homestead Act can be part of a New Green Deal that helps America and the world transition to green energy and a moral system of economics. How can this happen?
At this point in time there really is no question that human caused global warming is happening and is resulting in catastrophic climate changes. The only deniers of climate change are the fossil fuel profiteers and their hired politicians.
At the beginning of the 21st-century there was talk of the world having reached peak oil production and that the global oil supply was running out. There was interest in moving to renewable energy. Then the fracking process was discovered and suddenly America and the world had more oil and natural gas then they knew what to do with. The move to renewable energy was slowed down while the world pumped more and more carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. The earth is now in extreme trouble and we have no time to waste in converting to green energy.
The first step in fixing the climate change crisis is to declare an international and a national climate change emergency.
In America the federal government would quickly set up a New Green Deal program and coordinate with the United Nations to develop a world response. A New Green Homestead program would be part of the larger New Green Deal program.
Everyone will be asked to contribute to the New Green Deal program. Moral persuasion will be used to make the case to act. Everyone can donate something.
We are at war with the global warming climate changes we have caused. We are fighting to save ourselves from ourselves.The US government will reallocate some of the money it spends on other wars, military operations and weapons and invest in the infrastructure and production of green energy. Military personnel can be put to work rebuilding a green America. Money that the government has used to subsidize big oil and big agriculture will be redirected to green energy. A green infrastructure program will be created to organize financing and coordinate building green energy. This program will create a workforce to make the building of the infrastructure happen.
New tax incentives and tax credits will be given to green energy programs. States, counties and cities will be encouraged to be creative in developing additional programs, incentives and donation mechanisms. Changes in the taxing systems may be considered. Changes in how we think about money should be considered.
I believe that there is a moral imperative to act differently than we have in the past and that we act quickly. I believe that most people all around the world already know this. Many are already acting and contributing. It will not take much more persuasion to coordinate those who are willing to help to donate and to be more actively involved. A plan of action is needed to help people visualize what can be done and how they can help with their donations of money, time, energy, property and skills. Initially a coalition of the willing will be formed.
The American people really are a generous people when given a purpose. There are millions of Americans who are deeply concerned about climate change. They are already giving and making sacrifices and willing to contribute more in order to save the earth.
I propose the following steps in developing a new Homestead program.
1) It seems that most small, rural towns in America have some immediate capacity to take in and house new residents from the big cities. Each town can identify possible homes and properties for sale or to be acquired by donation. A recruitment program will be developed to identify individuals and families willing to relocate. Funding will flow from the homestead program to make this happen. Funding options include, but not limited to: Free property, free rent, vouchers, contracts for deeds, no interest loans, property swaps, grants, subsidized housing, homestead tax credits, church sponsored housing, government purchase of housing.
2) Places for regional, rural factories will be identified and set up in adapted buildings in small towns. The factories will make solar panels and small modular housing components. The railroad can help move supplies and products. A busing system can be developed to help people get to work.
3) States and counties will recruit and identify plots of land suitable for solar, agricultural and tree farms. The areas can vary in size from 5 to 40 acres. A square mile of land contains 640 acres. Perhaps one plot of land can be found in every one square mile of rural land. Each developed plot will contain A) an area of solar panels that the homestead program will own, B) a tree farm area and C) an area for a small house and an area for small farming. The solar farm will supply energy to the homestead owner and will generate energy that will flow into the grid.
Homesteaders will be recruited to live on these homestead plots. They will be owners of the agricultural land, the tree farm area and the home site. They will be given leases to farm the land under the solar panels. As an example, a 10 acre Homestead plot could proportionately contain 3 acres of solar panels, 2 acres of trees for carbon dioxide sequestration, 2 acres of home site area and 3 acres for small crop farming. The mix could vary depending on the size and location of the plot.
4) Set up crews will be part of the homestead program. They will build and assemble the solar panel arrays on the identified homestead plots and put in place initial home infrastructure. Homesteaders will plant trees and take care of the trees as part of participating in the program.
5) Small home units will be moved to the homestead sites. Homesteaders will begin living on the land. Buildings can expand as needed by the homesteaders.
6) Water delivery and sewage processing can be coordinated as needed with nearby small towns along with busing systems. In addition to tending the trees and land, homesteaders could as needed work some hours at the regional factories. Homesteaders, both small town or rural farmers will bring their own unique skills to add to and enrich their communities.
7) Farmer cooperatives will form to help, grow, store, process and transport food products to the city.The New Green Deal Homestead program will Infuse rural towns and rural areas with much needed money, customers and workers. New business opportunities will arise in rural areas from the new settlers. In our post covid world we have learned new ways to work and school from home and remotely. Improving and expanding communication technology to rural remote areas will be part of the Homestead program.
8) As people move from the big cities to the rural areas, the big cities can transform themselves to be more livable. This will happen by: A) better housing for those who live in the city B) taking down and recycling unneeded buildings and creating solar areas, tree areas and green spaces and parks. Recycled materials can go to the small rural home factories and areas for reusing in self made Homestead buildings. C) Making garden areas. D) Reducing traffic and creating better public transportation systems.
9) The homestead program will be designed to grow and expand. A major goal is to create a solar powered electrical grid across America that generates electricity and a reasonable user fee profit to reinvest in the green energy and homestead program. We the people of America will own this new power system.
10) Property insurance companies can be helpful in relocating people from climate change disaster incidences and zones to rural towns and homesteads. Rather than paying to rebuild in the same vulnerable places, insurance companies can help fund the migration to safer areas. Insurance companies are a socialistic safety net program. They collect money from individuals, pool it together, invest it, and then pay out to help people in need after a disaster. Paying premiums is like paying taxes. Presently insurance companies are primarily motivated to make profits for shareholders. Relocating people may be more profitable than paying for rebuilding in the same disaster zones. What if, however, insurance companies changed their fiduciary profit motive to be part of a funding source for a New Green Deal and a Homestead program. Insurance companies could expand their mission to include more equitably all stakeholders.
11) The federal government along with state and county governments continue to own and control vast amounts of public lands. The wealth from the natural resources from the public lands has however gone primarily to private corporations: big oil, timber and mining. The government even helps the corporations to extract wealth by giving subsidies, tax credits and breaks, and cheap leases to the corporations. Most of the profits go to the corporation shareholders. Oil, coal, and methane needs to stay underground in order to stop further climate change. The government can reallocate funding to green energy. The world needs vast areas of wilderness and forests in order to heal and decarbonize the atmosphere. These places should be left primarily to the flora and fauna. These lands should remain public wildlands. We need to actually expand wilderness protected areas and forests. We also need to change the way we do agriculture - to be sustainable and regenerating. Concerning farm lands, there is already enough private property land in America to be reallocated and re-purposed.
12) Since the great migration to big cities that began in the 1950’s, rural areas have been hurting and dieing. The new Homestead Program will not just bring new people to the rural areas of America but also much needed money, resources, jobs, customers and new energy! Green energy! Sustainable energy that can heal the Earth and rebalance culture.
13) It has recently come to public knowledge that Bill Gates is the biggest farmland owner in America. He has been quietly acquiring prime row crop farmland in 19 states through his Cottonwood Ag Management company which is a subdivision of his Cascade Investment company.
It seems he has been buying farmland primarily as an investment to diversify his wealth portfolio. Bill Gates now owns 242,000 acres of farmland, equivalent to 378 square miles of American soil. That equals an area 19 1/2 miles x 19 1/2 miles, or about half the size of an average Midwest county. That’s a lot of land for one land owner. But in the big picture, not all that big of an area. But it is symbolic.
Bill Gates generated his wealth by developing computer technology and software. He has since been investing and giving away his wealth in ways that fit his vision of the future. This has included disease control, improving Third World healthcare, combating climate change, creating new and improved nuclear energy, and expanding into improving agriculture in Third World countries and now here in America. He certainly has been very generous with giving his wealth away.
Perhaps Bill Gates can be persuaded to create or help create a new green homestead program of small independent and family farms. Such farms would, as described above, be sustainable, sequestering carbon dioxide in the soil by plants and trees, create energy with solar panels, and bring new wealth and resources to decaying rural areas and small towns. Bill Gates could provide starter seeds for a resurgent agricultural green revolution.
I have outlined my preliminary vision for a New Green Deal Homestead program. Others can quickly join in and add their ideas and specifics to this vision. We however need to act quickly if we are to save a livable future for ourselves, our grandchildren, and all life on this planet. To realize this new green vision there are several major barriers blocking the way.
1) The world already has a massive worldwide energy infrastructure built by big oil and coal. There is 50 years of oil and coal already in the pipelines and on the conveyor belts committed to feeding our dependent carbon-based energy needs. Big oil and coal corporations and countries don’t want competition from green energy. If there is going to be a conversion to green energy they want to be the ones to control it, own it, and profit from it. I believe the new green world's energy future should be democratic - meaning: of the people, by the people, for the people.
2) America is a deeply divided country. It is divided by: A) Class - The one and 10 percenters (the owner class) versus the 90 percenters (worker / consumer class). B) Race - White European heritage versus the black, brown, red and yellow ethnic origin groups. America‘s history is a story of white domination and exploitation of all other races. C) Politics - Republicans versus Democrats. Republicans believe in a pure capitalistic economic philosophy where everyone is responsible for themselves and have an equal opportunity to become rich, and where corporations have more power and rights than individuals. American exceptionalism. They believe the government takes away the freedom of the free market to do whatever one wants to do to get rich. If you are not rich, it’s your own fault. Republicans do not believe in taxing the rich or safety net programs for the poor.
Democrats generally believe in placing some restrictions on the excesses and exploitation of a purely capitalistic economic system based on profit. Democrats believe in the need for a governmental, democratically determined process for meeting public needs not met by a profit obsessed capitalistic corporate economic system. Democrats believe in protections for workers, consumers and the environment. Democrats see a need for safety nets to avoid pain caused by an unsympathetic corporate system.
In America there has always been a mix of independent capitalism and communal socialism. There are fierce debates about the differences and the right mix between the two. America is polarized and paralyzed.
D) Rural versus city. In America’s current make up, rural areas tend to be “red” Republican areas and big cities tend to be “blue“ democratic areas or states. There are several reasons I can speculate on why this is. Rural areas tend to be white and have benefited from America's white European history. Rural areas have a history of being closer to the land in farming and ranching. They have a history of self-reliance and struggling with nature to make a living. Rural areas grew from America’s history of immigration and homestead policies and programs. People who live in city areas are more dependent on governmental organizing and planning. Cities are crowded and in need of greater controls to function smoothly. To do your own thing seems to work better when you have more space around you. This “freedom“ idea and anti-government tendency of rural areas seems somewhat illusionary. It seems that rural agriculture is dominated by big agricultural corporations and markets. Individual farmers and family farmers are working for the corporations and bankers as much as city dwellers. New homesteaders will have a home and some land. They will be somewhat independent and self sufficient. Yet they will be part of a community. Total independence for anyone in this day and age is an illusion. We all need one another. We all need community.
E) Christian versus secular and other value systems. Rural areas tend to contain a more dense population of self identified Christians per capita than cities. Postmodern city life, capitalism, commercialization, the blending of multiple cultures, seems to have formed different identities for city dwellers in the past 100 years. Rural communities have tended to hold on to their religious Christian identities. However those Christian identities are fragmented and subdivided into a myriad of sects, denominations and brands of Christianity. Freedom of religion is a founding principle in America. Tribalism and identity politics keeps us divided and fearful and fighting. There are many things that all humans have in common.” E pluribus unum” out of many - one.
What I am getting at concerning America's deep divisions is this: Can rural America accept a new Homestead program of immigrants, settlers, and people who may be different coming from the big cities to “their“ rural towns and lands? And what if there are socialistic qualities involved in making the homestead program happen. I know it’s a lot to ask of rural America but I want to believe it can happen. What would it take to overcome the barriers blocking the way?
1) A change in thinking by corporations, banks, and the federal government will be needed. A new green world vision backed up by moral persuasion will be needed. There is more than enough money in the world to do what needs to be done if we change the ways we think about money. Money is just a useful tool to help us get things done. The rules of money can be changed. Who rules the money can be changed. The new green world vision and Homestead program will create energy, jobs, food, a cleaner world, healthier cities, and more wealth helping everyone. It will create a circulating economy.
2) A change in thinking will need to occur in spirituality, particularly Western religions, particularly Christianity. Rather than focusing on a far away heaven, Christianity needs to focus on making this earth a better place for everyone and to become better stewards of the earth. Rather than being co-opted by a capitalistic philosophy where everyone focuses on helping themselves, we need to focus on helping one another. We need to welcome the other, the stranger. All the divisions of Christianity need to join together with their Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters and unite with all other faith traditions to love this earth, to take care of it and to help one another here on earth. We all have the same basic human needs. We are all neighbors on one small planet moving through the heavens.
We need to remember that we humans are all settlers, immigrants, homesteaders. Plants and animals, fishes and insects were here on earth long before we humans came along and took over “their lands”. Who gave us the right to take over their lands? To steal it from them? To take ownership of it? To alter and destroy it? Humans are an invasive species, illegal aliens. Humans have been fruitful and have multiplied and have immigrated to the ends of the earth. Here in America even the Native Americans are not a native species. They too immigrated here coming from East Asia before the Europians came in ships starting in 1492. What I am saying is that we humans are all immigrants, conquerors of the earth. We now need to decide how best to all live together on this endangered precious Earth. How can we live in harmony with all other humans? How can we live in harmony with nature?
I believe that the New Green Homestead Program that I have proposed can help heal the wounds of America’s history. I believe it can begin to unify a deeply divided America as I have described above. I want to believe that we humans can come together and all live together as neighbors and not as enemies. We all have the same simple basic human needs. We all have special abilities to share with our neighbors. We need one another. We are all Earthlings trying to create a better world for our children and grandchildren.
The Earth needs healing from a history of human misuse, abuse, destruction, and greed. Humans need to quickly act together to stop global warming. I believe that a New Green Homestead Program can help begin a process of healing nature and the Earth. It can help achieve a better balance between nature and human culture.
America is at a critical decision point in time. Will we decide to continue on a path of self-destruction and descend into chaos? Will we move quickly to a green energy economy? Will we change our ways and direction and move towards creating a more perfect union here on earth? Can we change the way we think about the earth, government, money, corporations, energy, farming, politics, religions, and morality? Can we love one another? Can we unite together with nature? The fate of the Earth is connected to America changing! America can be an example to the world of how to change. Nature and human nature needs to be healed.
I believe that a new Homestead Program is the key to the New Green Deal and the transformation of America and the world!