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Chairwoman Senator Debbie Stabenow
Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, & Forestry
Ranking Member Senator John Boozman
Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, & Forestry
Chairman Representative Glenn “GT” Thompson
House Committee on Agriculture
Ranking Member Representative David Scott
House Committee on Agriculture
We write to express our strong support for the Farm System Reform Act (S. 271 and H.R. 797) and urge Congress to include the legislation’s critical reforms in the coming Farm Bill. We urgently need to overhaul the fundamental structure of our food system.
This visionary legislation meets the scale of action necessary to transform our farming and food system in a timeline that reflects the urgency of its problems. Farmers are in crisis as increasing concentration makes it impossible for them to get a fair price. The U.S. livestock and poultry system is dominated by a handful of multinational corporations and their web of factory farms that cruelly confine tens of thousands of animals in cramped, unsanitary conditions; these conditions place the safety of our food at risk, pollute our air and water, harm the welfare of animals and workers, extract wealth from rural communities, push family farmers out of business, increase the risk of antibiotic resistant bacteria and increase corporate control of our food.
The federal government has encouraged the development of our brittle food system through policy failures including weak environmental rules (and lax enforcement), farm policy that prioritizes overproduction of corn and soybeans to feed factory farmed animals, and failed antitrust policy that has allowed a handful of meatpacking companies to dominate the marketplace.
This model is not an accident. It is an intentional consolidation and corporate grab of resources designed to benefit a few of the biggest agribusinesses in the industry-- at the expense of farmers, consumers, workers, animals and the environment. But the Farm System Reform Act is a meaningful step to fix it.
This legislation will revitalize independent family farm agriculture and rural communities by:
- Placing a moratorium on new and expanding large factory farms
- Phasing out existing large factory farms by 2040
- Holding corporate integrators responsible for harm caused by factory farms
- Providing a $100 billion voluntary buyout program for contract farmers who want to transition away from factory farms
- Strengthening the Packers & Stockyards Act to protect family farmers and ranchers
- Restoring mandatory Country of Origin Labeling for meat
- Prohibiting USDA from labeling foreign imported meat products as “Product of USA”
This visionary legislation will benefit farmers, rural communities, food resilience, our air and water, and the welfare of animals. It’s time to ban new and expanding factory farms and build a better future. We urge you to support and prioritize the Farm System Reform Act today.
Signed,
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