Corporate Farming

A healthy and stable community depends not on the number of livestock being produced, but on the number of livestock producers living and working there. We work to create genuine opportunity for family farms and ranches.

Industrial agriculture has been defined, even by its proponents, as a system where the farm owner, the farm manager and the farm worker are different people. That's a dramatic change from the historic structure of agriculture, where the people who labor in farming also make the decisions and reap the profits of their work.

Corporate farming leads to closed markets where prices are fixed not by open, competitive bidding, but by negotiated contracts, and where producers who don't produce in large volumes are discriminated against in price or other terms of trade.

Check out our Corporate Farming Notes, below, to learn more about the consequences of industrialization and corporate farming on family farms and ranches.

Corporate Farming Notes

 

Farm Bill Priorities

Agriculture remains an important source of economic opportunity for people in rural areas.

Learn more about our farm bill priorities. We believe the farm bill can support small towns through crop insurance reform, conservation, beginning farmers, and rural development.

Pass a new farm bill before the existing one expires on Sept. 30, 2018.

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Corporate farming notes: pushing back on consolidation in the food system

By Anna Johnson on July 29, 2019 - 12:45pm

Consolidation of companies in the food system has had negative impacts for rural communities. One detriment is lack of choice and higher prices for farmers when purchasing inputs, as fewer and fewer corporations control seed and chemical production.

While wounds from consolidation are deep, understanding how and why food system corporations build power is important to regaining ground for the health of rural communities.

Your voice needed for fairness for poultry and livestock producers

By Anna Johnson on July 14, 2019 - 7:00am

Economic opportunity is vital to rural communities. Although poultry and livestock production is integral to rural economies, decades-long shifts in the poultry and livestock industry have pushed many producers out of the business and made it tough for those who remain. Packers and processors were once more willing to purchase animals that individual producers owned, bred, and raised themselves. Now, much of the industry prefers to purchase animals that producers raise under contract.

Field needs to be leveled for family farmers

By Anna Johnson on June 7, 2019 - 2:30pm

Sen. Grassley (IA) and Rep. Fortenberry (NE) are standing up for family farmers in very tough times. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently announced they plan to release regulations this year addressing payments to family farms. These payments offer essential support to family farmers, but current loopholes are exploited by the largest farms that sometimes receive hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars in payments.

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