Funders Worked Together to Move the Factory Farm Fight Forward

By Ted Quaday, Farm Aid

The battle over factory farm hog production intensified in the late 1990s, driving family farmers out of the hog business at an astonishing pace. The degradation of surface and groundwater worried rural communities; toxic gasses drifting off massive manure lagoons sickened people; the heavy use of antibiotics in factory farm hog production raised concerns for consumers as to the efficacy of antibiotics in fighting human disease; and animal welfare advocates objected to the production methods used in factory farm facilities.

These growing concerns, combined with weak rules from the US Environmental Protection Agency that regulated so-called “confined animal feeding operations,” served to elevate awareness of the problem in the public mind. They also created an opportunity within the funding community.

In 1998, an informal group of funding organizations began meeting to discuss ways to increase support for the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment and other organizations challenging the push toward factory farm production methods. This Funding Group on Confined Animal Feeding Operations consisted of Farm Aid, Jesse Smith Noyes Foundation, Education Foundation of America, Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

Reflecting on the critical nature of the factory farm problem and the many points of entry for both activists and funders, the Funding Group commissioned a full report on the status of the factory farm fight. Released in early 2000, The Price We Pay For Corporate Hogs provided funding organizations with background on a number of key factory farm issues, including the public health implications of the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, the environmental dangers posed by lagoon waste systems, the economic disaster for family farmers and rural communities that factory farm production promotes, and the inappropriate treatment of domesticated farm animals under factory farm conditions.

The report urged other funders to enter the factory farm fray. Today the fight continues. The Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment has scored a major victory with its win on the pork checkoff challenge, but simply eliminating the check-off will not end the push toward factory farm systems. While the National Pork Producers Council will no doubt be weakened if the pork checkoff is finally eliminated, grassroots groups report an ongoing incursion by factory farm interests. Hog factories continue to trouble rural communities, and now massive dairy farms are beginning to foul landscapes in many parts of the country.

At a minimum, renewed commitment to opposing these developments is needed. The ongoing problem also suggests the need for a deeper critique of the forces responsible for pushing our food producers into these unsustainable systems. It seems likely that we will find––should we care to look––an economic system rigged to bolster agribusiness corporations and multi-national food traders at the expense of family farmers and other independent producers. This system––inherently unfair, unjust and environmentally disastrous––quite simply can claim no place in our sustainable future.

For a copy of this report and further information visit www.iatp.org\hogreport.

From its inception, the Bush administration has undermined democracy in the United States.  It lost the election in November 2000, but still took office.  Its friends in industrial agriculture lost when the majority of hog producers in the US voted to end the mandatory checkoff tax, but they got Bush's Secretary of Agriculture, Venneman, to set aside the vote.

Checkoff funds have been used by the National Pork Producers Council to advantage industrial hog producers at the expense of family farm hog producers and to create the misleading ad about "the other white meat," which of course is untrue because pork is a red meat, it just cooks white.  In 1997, NPPC was caught spending checkoff funds to spy on family farm organizations that have been outspoken in opposition to the industrialization of the hog industry.  USDA reported that NPPC had also undertaken surveillance of mainstream environmental, senior citizens and student groups along with foundations that support sustainable agriculture initiatives.

After failing at every turn to avoid holding a democratic vote of hog producers petitioned by CFFE whether to end the mandatory checkoff tax, NPPC agreed to be bound by the outcome––until it lost––and then sued USDA to invalidate the vote.  To avoid going to court where the NPPC was certain to lose, Secretary Venneman agreed to an out of court settlement that set aside the vote and allowed the checkoff to continue. 

There's a pattern here.  When Utah's Governor Leavitt sued the Bureau of Land Management in 1996 to end studies of wilderness candidate lands, the suit was dismissed as having no merit.  Leavitt resurrected this same suit early in 2003.  To avoid losing in court, Interior Secretary Norton agreed to an out of court settlement and disqualified all lands identified for potential wilderness designation going back to 1991.  Further, she even ordered that there would be no more inventorying for potential wilderness.  Suits have been filed against Norton's action.  Bush has designated Governor Leavitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

The issue of the hog vote extends well beyond family farms and hog production.  It demonstrates how citizens can be organized to defend democracy and due process rights that are being undermined by the illegal Bush administration.  Bravo to the intrepid protectors of democracy that have prevailed (at the moment) against the Bush administration and Secretary Venneman.  Hats off to the far-sighted funders who enabled this work.  Supporting well-organized grassroots campaigns has been a winning strategy against the pork checkoff and may be for getting this administration out of office as well.  Do you know anything more important that you can do between now and November 2004?

––John Powers, Educational Foundation of America