The Congressional staffer moved up in their chair and looked up from the notepad with a quizzical expression. These farmers were asking for more regulation of the meat industry? They didn’t like factory farming and what it was doing to rural communities? And they wanted the government to stop subsidizing this factory farm system for livestock and dairy? These moments happen time and again when IATP visits Capitol Hill with our partners as part of the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment (CFFE), which includes family farm groups in Minnesota, South Dakota, Iowa and Missouri.
Our experience on the Hill speaks to the enormous power of the meat industry narrative about U.S. farmers and rural America. The story of factory farms, as told by the big meatpackers and their commodity groups, is one of high tech, efficient production that feeds the world and is central to a prosperous future for all farmers, ranchers and rural communities. Only those in big cities have a problem with it and they don’t understand agriculture. The industry narrative intentionally leaves out most farmers and rural people. Missing are the hundreds of thousands of farmers pushed off the land because they couldn’t get paid fairly, or those still going but with a mountain of debt, or those independent farmers who don’t want to be under the thumb of multinational corporations, or those trying to raise animals differently on the land and connect more closely with consumers. The industry narrative also leaves out the farmers and rural leaders fighting for clean water and air and against the harms to their community that are part of the factory farm system that feeds the big meat and dairy companies.
Those working on Capitol Hill and at state capitals, and those living outside of factory farm country, need to hear more than just the meat industry narrative. That’s why CFFE released a new podcast this week, “How to Fight a Factory Farm.” The four-part series features the voices of farmers and rural advocates on the ground in CFFE’s four Midwest states talking about the harms of the factory farm system, how it has grown (with a lot of government help), and how they are fighting back.
IATP has been analyzing the harmful effects of policies that benefit factory farms since our formation in the mid-1980s. We’ve reported on how trade deals like the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) strengthen global meat companies, allowing them to move animals and meat across borders. We wrote about how the 1996 Freedom to Farm Bill resulted in over-produced, below-cost feed that further fuels the factory farm system. In 2000, we published one of the first reports on the impacts of factory farms on Midwest rural communities, The Price We Pay for Corporate Hogs, and raised alarm bells about the threat of antibiotic overuse in factory farms to our public health. Recently, IATP reported on how Farm Bill conservation programs often subsidize factory farms rather than supporting real conservation, and advocated for stronger rules to protect farmers rights against the big meatpackers.
Pushing back against the meat industry narrative that all farmers and rural residents support the factory farm system is not easy. This podcast is just a start and only part of the picture. There are many farmer and rural voices routinely left out of food and farm debates, lost in a sea of agribusiness advertising and PR campaigns. We hope this podcast allows listeners to hear a different story from some of the people who have been directly affected by the factory farm system and why they believe something much better is possible.
Listen to How to Fight a Factory Farm here or wherever you get your podcasts.
