Jeanne Gramstorff

Farnsworth | Farmer, Banker

Jeanne Gramstorff was a farmer and banker in the north Panhandle town of Farnsworth, Texas, who helped organize and operate the non-profit group, ACCORD (Active Citizens Concerned Over Resource Development). ACCORD has been seeking to improve operations among the region’s confined feeding operations (CAFOs), chiefly hog facilities. Mrs. Gramstorff and other ACCORD members were concerned about wastewater runoff, aquifer contamination, nuisance-level odors, increased flies, and airborne diseases emanating from these facilities. Also, given their large size (handling as many as 250,000 hogs), efficiencies of scale, vertical integration, and remote ownership, these new facilities threatened many family-run, locally-based businesses. Finally, Mrs. Gramstorff and others within ACCORD were concerned about the erosion of due process rights to protect their communities’ health, the local ecosystems, and their land values from the effects of these facilities under recently streamlined administrative procedures, which largely eliminated CAFO permit hearings.