DES MOINES — More than 110 members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement rallied Monday at the state Capitol to support family farms.

The annual Support Family Farms and Rural Communities rally promotes CCI’s platform for clean air, clean water and local control of farms to gain support from legislators.

Carissa Lenfert, group member from Des Moines, said one of the group’s main issues this year is protecting family farms from corporate agriculture.

Local control would allow counties to decide the ordinances for feeding operations wishing to build within their county, said Barb Kalbach, CCI member from Dexter.

Kalbach said the group opposes the Environmental Protection Agency’s Safe Harbor agreement that provides animal agriculture industries with a period in which they are protected from legal liabilities associated with air emission violations.

The group’s 2005 legislative agenda includes giving local control over large-scale animal confinement zoning to counties rather than the state, establishing enforceable air quality standards and a moratorium on the construction, expansion of concentrated animal feeding operations with 1,000 animals or more, and increasing fines and penalties for environmental violations.

“Family farms are not a thing of the past,” said Frank Jones, a farmer from Bloomfield.

The group has been a great ally in the fight for local control, said Sen. Keith Kreiman, D-Bloomfield.

“What you are doing with clean air and clean water is so important,” Kreiman said to group members.

Kreiman said he is “not overly optimistic” about the legislation being successful.

“I think we need to keep up the fight,” he said.

The rally, however, was not without controversy. Members of the group spoke out against the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and the Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers, which was formed in May 2004.

“They’re the mouthpiece of corporate agriculture,” Kalbach said.

Doug Boland, Farm Bureau member from Williamsburg, said he didn’t understand the hostility toward Farm Bureau.

“We’re all for clean air and water,” Boland said.

Rep. Mark Kuhn, D-Charles City, said he is sensing a growing divide between CCI and the Coalition to Support Iowa’s Farmers.

“I would like to bring sides together for meaningful change,” Kuhn said.

Jones said the coalition has a reputation for attacking CCI.

“I think the coalition, through their negative attacks on CCI, has hurt family farms,” Jones said.

Boland said he thinks the coalition is a way to unite the different groups of farmers out there.

“We are all working together for the same cause,” Boland said.

Kuhn, who supports CCI, said he worries the organization is being painted as anti-agriculture.