Bureaucratic Regulation and Farmer Protest in the Michigan PBB Contamination Case.

This paper is about the representation of farmer grievances when established political channels break down. The source of farmer dissatisfaction in this study is the Michigan state regulatory response to PBB (polybrominated biphenyl) contamination of livestock feed and animal products in 1973-1978. The established political actors are Michigan Farm Bureau Federation (MFB), Michigan Department of Agriculture (MDA), Governor William Milliken, and the Michigan State University Cooperative Extension Service (Extension). Breakdown in established representation occurred when farmers perceived the bureaucratic and organizational interests of the farm establishment to the hostile to their own. Writers on the regulatory process have explored the thesis that regulatory agencies become "captured" by those they are presumed to regulate (Bernstein, 1955; Plumlee and Meier, 1978). In the PBB incident, the farmers affected, whether they had "captured" the agencies or not, were unable to displace the burden of regulation on to the larger society. The farmers had to bear the costs themselves and they did not like it. In this paper we examine specifically: (1) the relationship between farmer dissatisfaction and complaining, (2) the effect of the bureau structure and role on farmer complaining, (3) the displacement of farmer grievances in the electoral arena, and (4) the effect of farmer complaints on how state farm policy is made. The date base is farmers' reported contact (complaining, protest) with bureaus and intended vote change for governor, as recorded in a 1978 mail survey, plus 1974 and 1978 gubernatorial election results by country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]