Family Farm Defenders is proud to once again offer many giftboxes you can send to your family and friends over the holiday season. We are excited to offer award-winning Cedar Grove Cheeses along with other delicious products – Potters artisanal crackers, Cherokee Farms bison sausage, organic French Roast Coffee from Just Coffee, White Earth Native Harvest wild rice, Honey Acres mustard, Tietz Family heirloom popcorn, Driftless Organic sunflower oil, Pauls’ Seven Grain Pancake Mix, and Maple Valley Co-op maple syrup – all of which are “fairly traded” and guarantee their small scale producers a living income. By choosing Family Farm Defenders Holiday Gift Box, you can help insure family farmers receive a parity price for their hardwork. This holiday season why not just “say cheese” and support Family Farm Defenders!
FFD-1 Cream Puff Special:
Three pounds of “creamy” Cedar Grove cheeses that will melt in your mouth: Farmers, Monterey Jack and Butterkäse. We’ve also included some Tietz Family heirloom popcorn, as well as Driftless Organic sunflower oil. Yummy! $75 includes shipping and handling
FFD-2 Spicy Cheese Special:
Three pounds of “spicy” Cedar Grove cheeses that will tingle your tongue: tomato basil; pepper jack; and garlic dill. We’ve also included some Honey Acres mustard, as well as Potters artisanal crackers. Delicious! $75 includes shipping and handling.
FFD-3 Something Wild Special:
Three pounds of pepper jack, swiss, and smoked cheddar from Cedar Grove Cheese, along with White Earth Native Harvest wild rice, Cherokee Farms Bison Sausage, Honey Acres mustard, and Potter’s artisanal crackers A real crowd pleaser! $100 includes shipping and handling.
FFD-4 Farmers Breakfast Special:
We’ve put all sorts of good stuff in this box to kick off your holidays! Three pounds of Cedar Grove Cheeses: mild, sharp, and smoked cheddar, Cherokee Farms bison sausage, organic fair trade Just Coffee French Roast, Maple Valley Co-op maple syrup, plus Paul’s Seven Grain pancake mix. MMM super good! $125 includes shipping and handling.
Make Your Very Own Box!
Just give us a call (#608-260-0900) or email: familyfarmdefenders@yahoo.com if you would to customize your own box by mixing and matching whatever combination of items mentioned above. We are happy to make your holiday gift giving wishes come true!
Thanks for supporting family farmers and local fair trade this holiday season!
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Followup Panelists include: Pete Hardin, editor of The Milkweed; Sarah Lloyd, former dairy farmer and National Dairy Board member and Supply Chain Specialist for UW Grassland 2.0; Dominique Brossard, Professor, Life Sciences Communication, UW Madison; and Sara Fletcher, Vice President Corporate Affairs, Oatly North America. Moderator: Jim Goodman, retired organic dairy farmer, Board Chair National Family Farm Coalition Plus, post-film refreshments!
Sponsored by the UW-Madison Agroecology Program with support from Family Farm Defenders, Oatly, and Sub-Genre Media
Sat. Nov. 15th 8:00 am – 4:00 pm Best Western Plus Inntowner (2424 Univ. Ave.)FFD board retreat, including the FFD Annual Meeting starting at 12:00 noon CST
FFD annual meeting will include officer reports, board elections, and discussion of past and future activities. Lunch provided – all members and allies welcome!
For those who would like to join us virtually for the FFD Annual Meeting, here is the Zoom link Meeting ID: 865 4279 0584 Passcode: 460890
Sat. Nov. 15th 5:30 – 8:30 pm John Kinsman Food Sovereignty Prize Award Banquet and Ceremony
UW-Madison, Pyle Center (702 Langdon St.)
Closest parking is at State St. Campus Garage (430 N. Frances St.)
For those who would like to join us virtually, here is the Zoom link Meeting ID: 879 7321 2436 Passcode: 686415
This year’s winners include: Sarah Leong and Patrick Hager (Squashington Farm – Mt. Horeb, WI); Hannah Scates Kettler and Kurtis Kettler (Minerva’s Meadows – State Center, IA) and Jess D’Souza (Wonderfarm – Mt. Horeb, WI)!
$35 suggested donation includes a buffet featuring WI local and native food. Advance payment preferred (online donation welcome!) RSVP requested – but no one will be turned away!
Keynote speaker:
Christine Neumann-Ortiz
Founding executive director of Voces de la Frontera
Those planning to attend from outside of Madison are encouraged to book rooms at the Best Western Plus Inntowner under the name of Family Farm Defenders for a discounted rate: tel. 608-233-8778
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New labeling requirements to ensure the integrity of domestic markets, as well as price guarantees tied to anti-dumping measures, could improve the economic prospects of producers amid our ongoing trade war.
By: Anthony Pahnke, FFD Vice President and Associate Professor of International Relations at San Francisco State University Originally Published by Common Dreams 9/17/2025
Farmers may be the proverbial “canaries in the coal mine” when it comes to the effects of US President Donald Trump’s grand tariff experiment.
Point in fact—corn and soy prices are experiencing precipitous falls in no small part due to tariffs that China has placed on US imports. Cotton prices are dropping for the same reason, as nearly 80% of this crop is destined for export and China slapped a 15% retaliatory tariff on it. Prices for pork and beef appear on a different trajectory, with the latter benefiting from domestic shortages. But even here, trouble is on the horizon as China has cut back on imports from the US. This, as Brazil is exporting more soy, beef, and cotton to China to replace what US farmers once sent. It is no coincidence that the percentage of farm income in 2025 coming from government payments—25%—is approaching the level it was at when the Covid-19 pandemic devastated markets in 2020. The $59 billion dedicated for farmers’ relief payments in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” is testament to the fact that the economic future of rural America appears bleak.
The economic challenges our farmers face places even more pressure on the upcoming United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) renegotiations. Even though set for next year, Mexico, Canada, and the US are already staking positions and signaling their intentions. Look no further than Mexico contemplating placing tariffs on Chinese imports, a move clearly meant to stay in the good, however fickle, graces of the Trump administration.
Looking out for US farmers, there are some concrete policies that a renegotiated USMCA could feature. Specifically, new labeling requirements to ensure the integrity of domestic markets, as well as price guarantees tied to anti-dumping measures, could improve the economic prospects of producers as they struggle to weather the uncertainty of our ongoing trade war.
The problem is that in the past, the Trump administration took the wrong approach for how to improve the situation of producers when dealing with our neighbors. Concretely, when Trump renegotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) last time he was in office, besides rebranding it the USMCA, he also sought to open Canadian markets for US dairy exports.
Eking out marginal increases, those gains ultimately made no real improvement in the prices that farmers received. Proof of this is how dairy farmers have consistently struggled to stay in business, as we have witnessed a 25% nationwide decline from 2017 to 2023 in the number of licensed dairy herds. The recent uptick in dairy prices has nothing to do with USMCA, but instead to a reduction in feed costs and farmers cutting down their herds by selling heifers for beef.
Failing to finagle improved prices for farmers from changing exports, this time USMCA negotiations should focus on ensuring the integrity of markets.
The first step toward this would be for the US to reinstate Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (MCOOL). Originally part of the 2002 Farm Bill before being removed after Canada and Mexico put pressure on the World Trade Organization (WTO), this program would make retailers disclose the origins of their products, including milk, dairy, meat, fish, and fruits, and vegetables. As such, MCOOL allows consumers to make informed purchasing decisions and choose our products instead of picking the cheapest goods of dubious quality that may come from abroad.
Such a change would assist ranchers particularly, as since Trump has taken office, Brazilian beef imports flooded US markets. And since the WTO has been paralyzed since Trump’s first term when he chose not to appoint judges to the institution’s appellate court, now MCOOL can return without opposition.
Next, pricing policies could be put in place to assure a decent income for farmers and prevent dumping.
The US has already made one move in this direction, placing a 17% tariff on tomato imports and accusing Mexican growers of dumping, that is, exporting goods into another market at below cost to drive competitors out of business.
Preventing dumping also cuts both ways, as when NAFTA was first introduced, US corn imports drove Mexican farmers out of business, into poverty, and then to cross the border. Accordingly, if Mexico wants to restrict the flow of some commodity south, such as corn, they should be allowed to.
To avoid a tit-for-tat battle, resolving this issue requires setting floor prices in some capacity. Like what they have already done with wages for automobile workers, negotiators could do the same for grains, as well as for livestock. They could also set limits on what comes from outside the trade bloc, like Mexico appears ready to do with China. The same could be done with Brazil and its beef, or perhaps with the many European countries that send billions of dollars of cheese a year into the US. Cheese is a critical element of dairy pricing, and decreasing imports could lead to more US production and better prices for farmers.
Farmers are known for their resiliency. At the same time, they can only take so much. Export-driven growth may sound like a good idea, but the reality has been different. A renegotiated USMCA that actually puts farmers first could turn things around and give producers a fighting chance to make a decent income and stay on the land.
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Since our organization, the Family Farm Defenders (FFD), began in the early 1990s, we knew that the fate of food and farm systems around the world are inexorably linked to one another. We witnessed how free trade deals uprooted people globally, depressing prices for all farmers thus destroying rural communities worldwide. Visits our members have taken around the world, including to Mali, the European Union, Brazil, and Mexico, among other places, have helped us understand the realities of farmers and farm workers, and how the health of our planet and one another are intricately linked.
This knowledge grounds our strong opposition to the Trump administration’s program of mass deportation. Facts and reporting show that the administration’s claim that they are “going after the worst first,” is a lie. We know that the mass, indiscriminate arrests of migrants, including of farm workers and day laborers, silences workers by terrorizing them. Not to help the country, mass arrests and detention lines the pockets of executives in the private, for-profit immigration detention complex, led by corporations like Geo Group and CoreCivic. Always central to Trump’s racist and dehumanizing rhetoric concerning migrants, his administration’s plans are different this time for their scale and intensity.
“No Hate in the Dairy State” – Family Farmers and Farm Workers Unite to Defend Immigrant Rights at WI State Capitol
Meanwhile, most farm groups also denounce the plan to engage in mass deportations, because they view migrants – particularly farm workers – as critical inputs to their businesses as well as the food processing and distribution industry. We, too, understand that representation. It is a fact that there are more farm workers now than there are farmers (between 2 to 3 million of the former, under 2 million for the latter), and that without these laborers, about half of whom do not have legal authorization to be in the country, US farming would be in dire straits. Accordingly, some organizations promote visa reform, including plans to increase the H2A program, while others seek legal pathways for fish processing workers, and some advocate for undocumented people to receive driver’s licenses so that they can get to work safely.
But we emphasize that farm workers are more than inputs for businesses. Workers are members of our communities who have families and children. We share a common humanity regardless of where we were born, or the color of our skin. As people born in this country, citizens have done nothing to gain that privilege. We have passports that allow us to travel the world, while most others on this planet risk their lives to come here to work in dangerous, poorly-paid jobs just to have a chance of making a better living for themselves and their families. To tell migrants to “do it the right way,” or “like our ancestors did,” simply doesn’t make sense, because most do try to “do it the right way”.
We know the reasons why migrants, many of whom lack legal status, come to the US – global economic shifts and violence that they are not responsible for. The immigrants picking lettuce in California or milking cows in Wisconsin did not sign NAFTA when it came into force in 1994. Still, they felt its impact as their domestic markets were flooded with cheap goods, losing their way of life and ability to farm and feed their communities. To speak of law and order in this context is nonsense; the laws migrants break when they cross the border – many of whom came in the 1990s and 2000s – were passed in the 1950s and 1960s, at a time when migration to the US was virtually nil. The lack of real legal reform since then is the fault of our politicians, not immigrants.
A comparison to the Fugitive Slave law of 1850 is apt – just prior to the civil war, Congress’ passing of this law required that escaped slaves had to be returned to their owners if they made it to free states. As part of the abolition movement, many immigrant farmers and workers, along with local officials, actively resisted federal agents who were kidnapping people in their community. Similarly today, FFD supports the right of private citizens and government officials to NOT cooperate with ICE or other federal entities who are engaged in abusive and violent deportation activities.
Slavery and farm work in the US are not the same, although at times that may be the case. Instead, the larger point is that our laws need to be reformed. The reason people are in the US is not some nefarious plot to commit crimes, but to improve their economic realities. Moreover, the US depended on importing farm labor for over twenty years with the Bracero program (1942-1964). Before that, workers crisscrossed the border freely, as did Indigenous people. With the US’s system’s roots in the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act, the H-2 program only really begins with the 1986 Immigration and Reform Control Act when then President Reagan created the H2A program for farm workers. But since its inception, this program has woefully understaffed farms – with just under 400,000 workers coming in 2024. Moreover, this program is rife with abuse, as various farm worker organizations have researched and noted. Farm workers also have their pay determined before arriving, with no rights to form a union or complain about working conditions.
Various legal reforms are possible in this context, including:
*provide a path to citizenship for undocumented workers
*reform visa programs and the asylum process to end abuse, and give the right to workers to form unions and collectively bargain over wages and improving work conditions
We also know that migrants crossing borders are not individuals seeking to commit crimes, but instead people trying to escape from a combination of social factors. Accordingly, we:
*call for ceasefires at places where wars are currently waging, including with ending the use of food as a weapon
*demand trade deals, global and/or regional, that respect worker and farmer rights, giving people the chance earn a dignified living where they live, rather than being the victims of corporate globalization.
Our organization respects the principles of food sovereignty, which includes striving for dignified work conditions for everyone in agriculture. Our government violates these principles when they terrorize workers with the threat of deportation, family separation or a return to the violence they hope to escape through migration. As our changing government policies show, they do not care either about the dignity of workers or farmers (as their export-first, slapdash agricultural policy makes clear). We will do everything within our power to defend the dignity of both farmers and farm workers.
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Trump’s plans don’t work for U.S. farmers. In fact, his intention to increase exports and enter the Canadian market fails both American farmers and our partner to the north.
By: Anthony Pahnke, FFD Vice President and Assoc. Prof. of International Relations at San Francisco State Univ., and Jim Goodman, FFD board member and retired organic dairy/beef farmer from Wonewoc, WI
Freak weather changes and fluctuations in the market make planning for the future a gamble, never a sure thing. Dairy farmers have to deal with the additional issues of needing to keep their herds healthy and well-fed, as the price farmers receive in part depends on bacteria counts, and also the fat and protein content of the milk. If things weren’t hard enough, milk is a highly perishable product, which, unlike grains, cannot be stored and then sold when prices improve.
Giving farmers even more headaches these days is President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again trade war. Specifically, farmers have to endure even more uncertainty than normal as prices for inputs like seed or fertilizer may rise with tariffs, while their export markets abroad are endangered. In this mix of the president’s ongoing trade spats, he’s ridiculing Canada for protecting its dairy farmers with their supply management system, alleging that it harms U.S. farmers.
The moral of the story is that exports don’t keep farms in business, but instead allow larger operations to capture market share for themselves while driving out the smaller operations that have long defined U.S. dairy.
But here’s the reality—Trump’s plans don’t work for U.S. farmers. In fact, his intention to increase exports and enter the Canadian market fails both American farmers and our partner to the north.
Mexico has long been the main customer for our dairy exports and is regularly the No. 1 importer of all U.S. goods. This is a mutually beneficial arrangement as Mexico is a milk deficit country and meeting their domestic consumption needs requires imports. That’s how trade should work—when one country has stuff to sell that another country wants to buy, everyone wins.
With our neighbors to the north, the story is much different.
Canadians do not want our products forced into their market. Actually, Canadians want their system to stay as it is. It’s not difficult to see why. The Canadian supply management system ensures dairy farmers a fair price for their milk by tying domestic dairy production to consumption. Prices are negotiated in periodic meetings between farmers and processors to assure a baseline cost of production for producers and an adequate supply for domestic needs. Unlike the U.S. system, in which price controls were lifted for dairy in the 1980s, Canadian dairy farmers have a semblance of certainty year after year. U.S. dairy producers must fend for themselves, adopting a “get big or get out” mentality and increasing production whenever they can to maintain some kind of financial security. This push to constantly increase production leads to chronic overproduction and price volatility. Also unlike the U.S. system, Canadian farmers do not rely on tax-payer financed bailouts, or inadequate insurance payments that keep American farmers hanging on by a thread.
Furthermore, the production treadmill promoted by U.S. government policy has caused the loss of small farms and the hollowing out of rural communities. Trump continued this “get big or get out” mantra the first time he was in office, targeting Canadian dairy much like he is doing now. During the renegotiation of North American Free Trade Agreement into the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the Canadian market was slightly opened to U.S. dairy exports.
Despite the heralding of this change a “win” for farmers, it has proved to be anything but.
Specifically, even though exports to Canada have nearly doubled since 2018, U.S. farmers continue to exit the industry at alarming rates. While U.S. dairy operations numbered at about 34,000 operations in 2020, the year when the USMCA was officially passed, that number fell to just about 26,000 by 2023—a 25% decrease.
The moral of the story is that exports don’t keep farms in business, but instead allow larger operations to capture market share for themselves while driving out the smaller operations that have long defined U.S. dairy.
Particularly as we celebrate June Dairy Month, we should learn from the Canadian system instead of denouncing it. Granted, Canada’s supply management is not perfect—few government policies are. But their system provides for fair returns for farmers and certainty in a profession already marked by so many challenges. A similar production management system in the U.S. could ensure farmers a fair milk price thereby eliminating the need for taxpayer subsidies, while providing consumers with fairly priced, locally produced dairy. Let’s stop championing an economic vision for agriculture that has already been shown to be a failure.
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