The problems he struggled with during his first stint as agriculture secretary, from corporate concentration to racism, have not gone away.
by Anthony Pahnke, FFD Vice President
Published by the Progressive, December 15, 2020
It’s not often that politicians get the chance for a “do-over.”
Vilsack speaks to family farmers as part of an Obama White House Rural Forum in West Allis, WI in Aug. 2010
Yet this is happening with President-elect Joe Biden’s nomination of Tom Vilsack as secretary of agriculture, the same position the former Iowa governor held during the Obama administration.
Vilsack has also been criticized for inaccurately stating that the number of farmers of color increased during his first go as secretary of agriculture.
The choice of Vilsack to lead the USDA can be read as part of Biden’s effort to show continuity with the Obama years. But the problems that Vilsack struggled with during his first stint as agriculture secretary, from corporate concentration to racism, have not gone away. The incoming secretary must also confront serious food and farm problems that the Trump administration has left unaddressed.
Specifically, while it’s true that farm earnings rose in 2020, that’s largely because government subsidies constituted about 40% of farm income this year. “If not for those subsidies,” The New York Times reported, “U.S. farm income would be poised to decline in 2020.”
Farmers find themselves in this situation, in large part, due to the failure of processors to adapt to the changing consumer habits that the coronavirus pandemic created. The USDA’s response was to launch the “Farmers to Families Food Box” program, using the government as an intermediary to get food from producers to consumers. This effort received mixed reviews for favoring large-scale operations and dropping Black farmers.
While laying the blame on Trump for these challenges is not entirely fair, he did make matters worse for farmers by initiating a trade war with China; afterward, his administration had to bail out farmers to make up for China’s retaliatory tariffs.
Meanwhile, instead of making markets more competitive for farmers, the Trump administration nixed provisions – the GIPSA (Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration) rule — from the 2008 Farm Bill that would have helped producers hold processors accountable for unfair and discriminatory practices.
Basically, Vilsack has his work cut out for him.
He faces criticism from Black farmers for his mishandling of a 2010 dust-up involving Shirley Sherrod, the Black Georgia state director of rural development. Vilsack fired Sherrod after a video surfaced showing her apparently making discriminatory statements against white farmers. He later had to apologize when the video was proven a fake.
Vilsack has also been criticized for inaccurately stating that the number of farmers of color increased during his first go as secretary of agriculture. In fact, a change in the USDA’s method of accounting — not an attempt to confront racism — made the population of farmers appear more diverse than it really is.
Meanwhile, between the Obama and Biden administrations, Vilsack became president of the U.S. Dairy Export Council. With Vilsack at the helm of this organization, corporate concentration continued apace, as Dairy Farmers of America acquired Dean Foods. Moreover, dairy farmers entered bankruptcy in record numbers as prices plummeted.
According to the Open Market Institute, fewer and fewer corporations dominate the American food system from seed to plate. This not only subjects farmers to predatory pricing, but hurts consumers at the grocery aisle.
If given a second chance to lead the USDA, Vilsack should use its powers from the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 to investigate corporate agribusiness giants and punish wrongdoing. He should throw his support behind the recently introduced “Justice for Black Farmers Act,” which would help aspiring farmers of color to acquire land and training.
Vilsack knows the USDA and the problems facing rural America. He must not lead the agency according to the past, but make amends with those who have been wronged and lay the groundwork for a more fair and equitable food and farm system.
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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 – artisanal Potters crackers, Cherokee Farms bison sausage, organic French Roast Just Coffee, Red Lake native Canadian wild rice, Honey Acres hot mustard, Tietz Family heirloom popcorn, and Driftless Organic sunflower oil – all of which are “fairly traded” and guarantee their small scale producers a living wage. By choosing Family Farm Defenders Holiday Gift Boxes, you can help insure family farmers and indigenous communities 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! $50 total – 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 hot mustard, as well as Potters artisanal crackers. Delicious! $50 total – includes shipping and handling.
FFD-3 Something Wild Special
Three pounds of pepper jack, swiss, and smoked cheddar from Cedar Grove Cheese, along with Red Lake native Canadian wild rice, Cherokee Farms Bison Sausage and Potter’s artisanal crackers. A real crowd pleaser! $75 total – includes shipping and handling.
FFD-4 Holiday Festival Special
We’ve put all sorts of good stuff in this box to kick off your holidays! Three pounds of mild, medium, and sharp cheddar from Cedar Grove Cheese, Cherokee Farms bison sausage, Potter’s artisanal crackers, organic French Roast Just Coffee, Red Lake native Canadian wild rice, Tietz Family heirloom popcorn, as well as Driftless Organic sunflower oil. MMM super good! $100 total – includes shipping and handling.
We are happy to customize and mail a giftbox according to your preference, including any of the above items in whatever quantity you wish. Just give us a call (#608-260-0900) or send an email: [email protected]
To pay for your giftbox, please send a check to: Family Farm Defenders, P.O. Box 1772, Madison, WI 53701 You can also pay using a credit card via the Mighty Cause donation button on the right hand side of this website!
Thanks for supporting family farmers and sharing the delicious gift of food sovereignty this holiday season!
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Meeting ID: 922 8686 1664 Passcode: JK2020 One tap mobile +19292056099,,92286861664#,,,,,,0#,,075603# US (New York) +13017158592,,92286861664#,,,,,,0#,,075603# US (Germantown)
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Featuring this year’s winners: Catatumbo Cooperative Farm in Chicago! – as well as tribute to longtime FFD activist, Randy Jasper, who recently passed away due to COVID 19, success stories from previous prize winners and photos, plus a celebration of the legacy of FFD founder and grassroots food sovereignty champion, John Kinsman, through photos and reflections from his friends and family.
Named after a unique lightning phenomenon in Venezuela, Jazmin Martinez, Nadia Sol Ireri Unzueta Carrasco, and Viviana Moreno founded Catatumbo Cooperative Farm in 2008 after attending the Black and Latinx Farmer Immersion Program hosted by Soul Fire Farm. Being queer immigrants with strong family histories tied to agriculture and displacement, they came into vegetable CSA farming after many years of campus organizing, immigrant rights work, and environmental justice activism. Among their food sovereignty goals are building intentional relationships with other farmers of color and advocating for communal land stewardship versus individual property ownership.
To quote from their prize winning essay: “We strive to share our knowledge and resources whenever feasible because we believe by building a strong network of support we are helping to build stronger communities, working from a framework where collaboration and diversity builds abundance, resilience and understanding, reshaping our relationships to each other into ones of solidarity and care towards past and future members of our communities, human and non-human alike.”
In recognition of their success, Catatumbo Cooperative Farm received a $2000 award and joined a long list of other proud winners of the prize named in honor of John Kinsman, founder and longtime president of Family Farm Defenders who passed away at age 87 on MLKJ Day, 2014. John Kinsman was not only an early pioneer of organic grass-based dairying in the Midwest, but was also a tireless champion of civil rights, social justice, and food sovereignty both in the U.S. and around the world.
Previous John Kinsman prize winners – some of which will be joining this year’s virtual award celebration – include: in 2011: Lindsey Morris Carpenter of Grassroots Farm, near Monroe, WI, and Daniel and Hannah Miller of Easy Yoke Farm near Millville MN; in 2012: Nancy and Jeff Kirstein, Good Earth Farm, Lennox SD and Tracy and Dick Vinz, Olden Produce, Ripon, WI; in 2014: Blain Snipstal of Five Seeds Farm near Sparks, MD and Jed Schenkier and Will Pool of Loud Grade Produce Squad in Chicago, IL; in 2015: Carsten Thomas from Moorhead, MN and Emmet Fisher and Cella Langer with Oxheart Farm near Mt. Horeb, WI; in 2016: Donald (Jahi) Ellis from Vidalia, GA and Polly Dalton and Oren Jakobson with Field Notes Farm near Custer, WI, in 2017 Eduardo Rivera of Sin Fronteras Farm near Stillwater, MN; in 2018 Tommy and Samantha Enright of Black Rabbit Farm near Amherst, WI and Craig and Lauren Kreutzel of Meadowlark Farm near Wonewoc, WI; and in 2019 Curtis Whittaker of Faith Farms in Gary, IN and Joseph & Abbie Monroe and Caleb & Kelly Fiechter of Valley Spirit Farm in Campbellsburg, KY.
Both events are free, though tax deductible donations to support this year’s prize, as well as future ones, are most welcome. Sponsors will be mentioned in publicity and any donation over $50 will receive a FFD t-shirt, as well! Donations can be made by check to: FFD, P.O. Box 1772, Madison, WI 53701 or via credit card on our website: www.familyfarmers.org
Thanks for supporting community food sovereignty!
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By: John E. Peck, executive director of Family Farm Defenders
(forthcoming article in the Fall 2020 FFD Newsletter)
Solidarity Cows on Parade During the 2011 Pull Together Farmer Labor Tractorcade in Madison, WI
With a critical election on the near horizon, many media pundits (and online bots) have been busy fanning the flames of the U.S. rural urban divide. The politics of resentment are certainly genuine and worth understanding – a challenge UW-Madison Prof. Katherine Cramer tackles in her book by the same name. The specter of a global pandemic on top of systemic racism in early 2020 exposed many of the deep divisions and chronic inequities in our society, but at the same time facing down this twin-headed threat has brought communities together. That is because peoples’ concerns often overlap – regardless of history or geography – and when one recognizes that reality amazing things can happen. With sufficient empathy, trust, and creativity one can cultivate solidarity out of crisis and chaos.
Just to use my home state as an example, rural and urban folks across WI have many more mutual interests than contrived differences. Relatives and friends of Jacob Pero on the Bad River Reservation, of Tony Robinson from Madison’s East Side, or of Jacob Blake in Kenosha’s Wilson Neighborhood have all been forced to confront and challenge the deadly consequences of police brutality. The rural family in Kewaunee or Lafayette County who’s well water is poisoned with factory farm manure runoff can relate to an urban family in Milwaukee County who’s tap water is also toxic due to unmitigated lead contamination. Lack of internet can be just as frustrating and disempowering for a family needing basic social services or doing virtual school classes no matter one’s address. Rural and urban folks are just as keen to have universal public healthcare, affordable housing options, reliable postal delivery, healthy local food, the list goes on and on. And when corrupt elected officials and greedy corporate executives collude to starve/sabotage and outsource/privatize such, people are bound to resent and resist this latest enclosure of our common wealth and natural heritage.
Milwaukee Mural of Joshua Glover’s Rescue & Escape
In this tough times, it is worth taking a moment to reflect upon and find heart in earlier episodes of grassroots solidarity that permeate our people’s history (thanks Howard Zinn!). Every place has such an inspiring legacy – I will share some of my WI favorites. When Joshua Glover was kidnapped by “slave catchers” in Racine back in 1854 and then taken in chains to the Milwaukee County Jail by federal marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act, who knew that hundreds of angry abolitionist immigrant farmers would promptly march on the city from surrounding counties, batter down the jail door, and then hide Glover for days on their homesteads until he could secretly board a Lake Michigan steamer bound for freedom in Canada. The Wisconsin Underground Railroad would save many others fleeing bondage in the years leading up to the Civil War – for more on this saga, check out the book, Finding Freedom by Ruby West Jackson and Walter T. McDonald.
When seven people were killed in Milwaukee in May 1886 by National Guard troops as part of the nationwide eight hour day struggle (now known as the Bayview Massacre), popular support for labor rights quickly spread across the state – leading to more strikes in the mills in Oshkosh, in copper mines and lumberjack camps in the North Woods, as well as in factories in Madison. Many UW students and faculty openly supported such labor struggles, leading to an elite backlash and a crude effort to fire one outspoken professor, Richard Ely. Fortunately, the UW Board of Regents rejected this idea and instead issued the now famous 1894 statement enshrined on Bascom Hall: “Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”
WI Milk Strike Dump in 1933
The 1930s Great Depression and Dust Bowl generated more solidarity. The acclaimed conservationist, Aldo Leopold, organized desperate farmers and unemployed workers to restore eroded watersheds and reforest denuded landscapes across the Driftless Region – and the amazing consequences of this effort remain evident in places like Coon Valley today. Under the New Deal, farmers and consumers formed hundreds of cooperatives as an alternative to corporations to provide goods and services at cost (with no profit motive) to their members. Wisconsin today remains one of the nation’s epicenters for successful cooperative development. In 1933 when WI dairy farmers went on strike to demand a fair (parity) price for their milk, they were supported by urban allies who helped intercept clandestine milk shipments that were then dumped along the railroad tracks. Such rural protests had already spread across the country and compelled FDR to pass the Agricultural Adjustment Act – one of his first New Deal programs – establishing a federal market price for basic agricultural commodities and setting a precedent for farmer-controlled supply management – which, sadly, has yet to be realized.
1960s Civil Rights Protest in Milwaukee
Fast forward to the 1960s – and, once again, Wisconsinites from all walks of life worked together to demand racial justice. John Kinsman, an organic dairy pioneer near Lime Ridge and founder of Family Farm Defenders, started Project Self Help and Awareness to foster inter-racial exchanges between rural farm kids in WI and their counterparts in MS. These relationships flourished over decades, leading directly to 2006 when WI farmers delivered a dozen donated tractors and other implements to their colleagues with the MS Association of Co-ops to help them recover from Hurricane Katrina. When Obreros Unidos organized a migrant farmworker march from Wautoma to Madison in 1966 they found much support in small towns along the way – the same was true when Father Groppi organized a “Welfare Mothers” march from Milwaukee to Madison in 1969. In the 1980s when native folks were under attack by racist hate groups for exercising their treaty rights, a diverse WI coalition emerged to bear witness at the boat landings and engaged in constructive dialogue and popular education to shift broader public opinion. For more on these episodes of unity in struggle, read Patrick Jones’ book, Selma of the North, and Rick Whaley/Walt Bresette’s book, Walleye Warriors.
No Hate in the Dairy State Rally – WI State Capitol
Without this tradition of solidarity, we would have never experienced the historic Capitol Occupation and statewide Cheddar Uprising of 2011, which culminated in the state’s largest protest ever on Sat. March 12th – when 150,000+ people gathered to greet the Pull Together Farmer Labor Tractorcade in support of collective bargaining rights and against austerity budget cuts. Nor would we have seen groups like Family Farm Defenders and Wisconsin Farmers Union standing with Voces de la Frontera in 2017 to say “No Hate in the Dairy State” and publicly oppose ICE efforts to detain, abuse, and deport undocumented farm/food workers that are now such a vibrant and integral part of our society.
Amazon Workers On Strike – May Day 2020
The brittle vulnerability of corporate agribusiness was one of the first supply shocks felt by many as the pandemic came to grip the world in early 2020. Streams literally ran white as farmers were forced to dump their milk without any buyers and piglets were euthanized in their pens as packing plants cancelled their contracts, while still forcing their sick employees to show up for work or get fired. Meanwhile, bigbox retailers were rationing their inventory, limiting consumer purchases to one gallon of milk and one pound of bacon at a time. As online sales jumped, Amazon workers were expected to work even harder on behalf of the world’s richest billionaire, Jeff Bezos. For many, the abusive treatment and crass exploitation of essential workers was simply intolerable. Thus, it was hardly any surprise when dozens of labor unions and social justice groups, led by Cooperation Jackson, called for a May 1st General Strike against the disaster capitalism that was using the pandemic to extend its reach.
Fortunately, communities can democratize and relocalize their economy to bypass the corporate bottleneck, and we certainly saw this happen across the foodshed. With a 60% jump in food bank visits as unemployment rates skyrocketed, the Wisconsin Hunger Taskforce earmarked over $1 million in scarce funds towards buying milk direct from family farmers to feed those in need, while Second Harvest set up an “Adopt a Cow” donation program to help fill their milk gap. Sassy Cow Creamery in Portage County even installed a fridge outside their door so that anyone who lacked milk could help themselves. So-called “freedges” are popping up in communities all across the U.S. to provide donated food to those in need – in New York City there over 60 now installed on public sidewalks and available round the clock thanks to volunteers with the anarchist collective, A New World in Our Hearts. When not demanding justice for Breonna Taylor, who was shot dead by Louisville police in her own home on March 13th, family farmers and local food activists behind New Roots have been expanding their Fresh Stop Markets to get more healthy produce to low income folks in thei community.
Forty Acres and a Mule Project!
Chefs are also stepping up to address pandemic food insecurity while also tackling systemic inequality, transforming their restaurants into volunteer community kitchens. In Chicago Chef Roberto Perez of Urban Pilon, Chef Fresh Roberson of Fresher Together, Chef Karla Morales of Amor y Sofrito and Chef Kwamena of the Let Us Breathe Collective have become local pillars of the Everybody Eats Mutual-Aid Meals program, supported by the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. In Minneapolis when the Gatherings Cafe was forced to close in March due to the pandemic, it was taken over by native chefs and started delivering free meals to elders in the Twin Cities area, featuring delicious indigenous ingredients. According to Brian Yazzie (who was also serving up native food to water protectors during the Standing Rock protest), food is medicine. Adrian Lipscome, owner of the Uptown Cafe in La Crosse, WI launched her own 40 Acres and a Mule Project in March to help reestablish the tradition of African American farming in the Driftless Region of WI, which in the 19th century hosted hundreds of black settlers that had moved north with hopes for a bright new life after the Civil War. As of Sept. this GoFund Me campaign had raised nearly $130,000 to acquire land for a just transition towards a more diverse agriculture and greater food sovereignty.
Somali Bantu Community Association – Lewiston, ME – Winner of the 2020 U.S. Food Sovereignty Prize!
With millions of unemployed renters facing eviction (and farmers confronting foreclosure), other groups have also taken up the challenge to redistribute and decommodify land and shelter. Grassroots campaigns against speculative land grabbing are gaining steam. In Sept. the Orange County, CA Employees Retirement System (OCERS) decided to divest $64 million from the UBS AgriVest Farmland Fund, while students, staff, and faculty at many colleges across the U.S. are confronting TIAA – one of the largest pension funds and land owners in the world – on the same issue. Homeless advocates, who had been occupying fifty vacant publicly owned properties in Philadelphia for months, just declared victory as the city agreed to transfer the homes to a community landtrust under control of Philadelphia Housing Action. Immigrant farmers (90% of which are women) with the Somali Bantu Community Association recently acquired a 99 year lease to a 107 acre plot in Lewiston, ME thanks to the Agrarian Trust, with similar “Agrarian Commons” efforts underway cross ten states putting 2400 acres into the hands of marginalized farmers. On the Menominee Reservation in northern WI, the nationwide tiny homes movement is gaining fresh momentum by offering a safe transition for those recovering from domestic violence and/or substance abuse, with a unique indigenous twist – all the building materials are provided by the tribe’s own communal lumber operation, drawing from forests managed under the Seventh Generation Principle.
Even some usually “quiet” people have demonstrated amazing solidarity in this moment. When the Amish in Sugarcreek, OH heard in April from the Cleveland Clinic that there was a dangerous shortage of protective equipment at the hospital, they organized a sewing frolic and within two days produced 12,000 face masks for essential healthcare workers. Mennonite farmers were so upset by the May 25th police murder of George Floyd that they travelled to Minneapolis to participate in the Black Lives Matter protests. Mutual aid can just as easily cross borders, too. When news reached Ireland in March that native reservations in the southwest had become one of the worst pandemic ‘hot spots” in the U.S., over half a million dollars was donated by residents of the Emerald Isle to the Navajo and Hopi Families COVID 19 Relief Fund. Apparently, the Irish had not forgotten the generous $170 donation that the Choctaw Nation had made to victims of the Irish Potato Famine way back in 1847. This was reminiscent of the indigenous Sami delegation visit to Standing Rock, ND back in 2016 and their subsequent grassroots campaign that forced the Norwegian state pension fund to divest $58 million from Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL).
Water Protectors Express Themselves – Standing Rock, ND
Now is not the time to fall victim to the weary “divide and rule” tactics of those who claim to have power over the rest of us. Whether you are supporting racial justice efforts to hold police accountable and shift more public funds to vital social services; whether you are pushing to end gerrymandering and resist voter suppression efforts leading up this election and beyond; whether you are preparing to join future protests against extreme fossil fuel extraction schemes and taking other actions in support of climate justice; whether you are supporting food sovereignty efforts to reclaim food as a basic human right and not leave it in the hands of the hunger industrial complex – there is a welcome home for you in this growing solidarity movement. And if you choose to join us, you may also find many old and new friends and allies along this high road towards a better world.
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A national alliance of farmers, workers, and fishers says agroecology and the human right to food are needed now more than ever to stop climate change and ensure that everyone has access to healthy, nutritious food
The U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA), a network of 50+ grassroots organizations and grassroots supportive organizations, has just published an open letter denouncing the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (U.N.) Agencies for Food and Agriculture, Indiana agribusiness baron Kip Tom, for his unprecedented attacks on agroecology – a science, practice, and organizing tool for farmers and food producers that bases food production on ecological principles – and on the U.N. itself. In its letter, the USFSA asserted that food producers around the world and in the United States need agroecology to support their communities, protect the planet, and ensure everyone has access to healthy food.
Ambassador Tom asserted in a speech to the US Department of Agriculture in early 2020 and in a recent editorial that agroecology is “anti-science,” and he has made fear-mongering comments that hunger and poverty will be much worse if farmers stop using the toxic pesticides, genetically modified seeds, and expensive machinery and technologies that are controlled by agribusiness.
“Ambassador Tom’s disdain for agroecology reveals that he indeed has a minimal understanding of the concept of agroecology,” said Patti Naylor, a farmer from Iowa who represented the USFSA and the North American region at the U.N. Committee on World Food Security (CFS) for when it discussed agroecology in 2019, where she met Ambassador Tom. “Agroecology is not simply a set of farming practices but instead comes out of people’s movements, in which social commitments and political education make agroecology the pathway to food sovereignty. All of this is a threat to the power and influence of a global agrifood industry. The Ambassador’s role at the U.N. is to defend and expand the dominance of the agrifood industry, but his task is becoming more and more difficult as the global health pandemic has revealed a fragile food supply chain, dependent on the exploitation of people and nature.”
Ambassador Tom also blames a key U.N. agency, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) whose governing committee endorsed agroecology two years ago, for being “against American values” and used his history growing up on a family farm to posture as if he represents the interests of family farmers. Ambassador Tom now operates agribusiness firm Tom Farms, which manages 25,000 acres in the U.S. and Latin America and produces seed for companies like Bayer-Monsanto and Syngenta.
Member organizations of the USFSA denounced Tom for attempting to speak for American family farmers and food producers, the majority of whom want and demand agroecology, food sovereignty, and the human right to food.
“Most farmers in the world do not farm 20,000 acres like Mr. Tom, nor would they want to,” said Jim Goodman, retired dairy farmer from Wisconsin and current President of the National Family Farm Coalition. “Farmers want to farm within their means, matching their local context and diets. The Green Revolution, which Mr. Tom says we need instead of agroecology, has played havoc with people’s lives and the environment across the world.”
Goodman added that practitioners of agroecology embrace science and technology but ensure that they serve farmers, workers, and all food producers by prioritizing greater social equity, the restoration of ecosystems, and more sustainable food systems and trade and by making research and development processes participatory, collaborative, and community-based.
Jennifer Taylor, an organic family farmer, Associate Professor at the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, and one of the national coordinators of the USFSA, said that “agroecological farming systems promote soil fertility, soil and water conservation, biodiversity, healthy environments, mitigate pest damage and climate change. Agroecological practices develop sustainable farming systems that benefit our communities by generating employment, providing essential services, and distributing healthy produce.”
Taylor also noted that organic farmers “support the avoidance of synthetic hormones and antibiotics, and we oppose the use of sewage sludge, irradiation, GMO/genetic engineering materials, and GMO agricultural strategies. Some of our key practices include: growing a healthy farm through gaining knowledge to support what grows best in our farm environment; building healthy soils, selecting organic seeds and transplants, integrating mulches, crop rotations, cover crops; compost use; enabling pollinator and beneficial insect habitats; selecting viable locally adapted varieties; and seed saving.”
The USFSA also issued a strong repudiation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decades-long support for extractive, “fencerow-to-fencerow” agriculture and a pro-agribusiness “get-big-or-get-out” policy framework. These policies have pushed millions of family farmers out of business and have polluted and poisoned rural communities. The USFSA called for systemic changes in U.S. food and agriculture policy and a Green New Deal that centers the needs and voices of frontline communities and is based in environmental and climate justice.
Finally, the USFSA denounced the long history of the U.S. government disrupting and obstructing democratic policy-making at the United Nations and in other countries and selling out rural and urban communities in favor of transnational corporations. The letter calls on Ambassador Tom to support democratic U.N. processes and to listen to U.S. food producers, not U.S. agribusiness corporations, and support agroecology. “Family farmers, food and farm workers, and rural communities need to be at the center of policy-making, especially at the global level,” said Tristan Quinn-Thibodeau, national campaigner with ActionAid USA and part of the USFSA’s International Relations Collective. “U.N. spaces like the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) center the ‘holders’ of human rights – the frontline, grassroots communities who are entitled to human rights – and so it is critical that governments and all stakeholders prioritize and protect the participation of grassroots organizations, especially from communities that have been historically excluded.”
“The conflict between the corporate model of agriculture – based on profits – and agroecology – based on the human rights, the rights of peasants, the protection of nature, and food sovereignty – will determine the kind of world we will leave the next generations,” said Patti Naylor. “Agroecology is the only choice that can support farmer livelihoods and meet the challenges of climate change, food insecurity, and environmental collapse.”
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