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JOHN MCCLAUGHRY

Until last year, John McClaughry (a MOTHER subscriber since issue 1!) was a typically busy homesteader in northern Vermont, raising a few head of livestock and tending a large garden. In his "spare time", however, the freethinking Republican served two terms in the Vermont state legislature . . . ran for lieutenant governor . . . and operated a oneperson think tank-called the Institute for Liberty and Community—which espoused the concept of civic humanism, a sort of neoJeffersonian political philosophy based upon decentralization of big government and "restoration of the small-scale human community".

McClaughry also wrote radio commen taries for Ronald Reagan and served as policy advisor for that candidate's 1980 Presidential campaign . . . so when Reagan was elected, he asked the New Englander to join his White House staff as a senior policy advisor. Now, the self-described "hillbilly in Washington" uses his position to promote the need for selfreliance and small-scale food production. As executive secretary of the Cabinet Council on Food and Agriculture, John says he grabs every chance he gets to point out to his federal colleagues the importance of the small farm in this country. Last fall, for example, his office helped prepare a statement in favor of diverse, homestead-based agriculture which was presented by President Reagan at the USDA's Conference on Small Farms.

McClaughry is also pushing for increased attention. to the problems he feels the U.S. would encounter if a massive disruption of our food production and distribution systems were to occur. In that situation, the Vermont policymaker maintains, our only salvation would likely be the small, localized farm unit . . . so "having a source of food and fiber close to home is a very legitimate function of governmental farm policy".

Unfortunately—as McClaughry has observed from his unique vantage point inside the Reagan administration—governmental attitudes don't normally run that way. For instance, he notes that "there is some sentiment in the Agriculture Department that the person who works part time, off the farm, to supplement his or her income isn't a 'real' farmer". He feels very strongly that such individuals "have got to be a part of federal or state farm policy, rather than leave that policy exclusively for the major crop producers". As long as he's got access to the Presidential "ear", John McClaughry intends to work energetically to bring about such a change.—JM.

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