The loss of family farms sends an economic ripple effect through our farm communities, as local purveyors of farm supplies and distributors of farm products find that the new corporate farms manage their own supplies and marketing, often from outside the community or even out of state. Industrial sized farms create mass quantities of manure and other wastes that can contaminate our lakes, rivers and streams and seep into our drinking water.  The vast numbers of animals confined on these farms also creates conditions that are unhealthy and inhumane.

The Family Farm Stewardship Campaign, coordinated by Wisconsin Citizen Action, is bringing together family farm, environmental, church, and citizens groups as well as individual farmers and activists to seek a solution.  The Family Farm Stewardship Campaign is holding forums across the state for farmers, food quality activists, environmentalists, rural development advocates and anyone else who wants to help pass state legislation to preserve the family farm system of agriculture, promote healthy rural communities and protect our family farms and environment from a pending 50% increase in industrial livestock operations.

The Family Farm Stewardship Campaign has also been working to build a broad coalition in support of family farms, educate the public about the threat posed by industrial livestock operations, develop a joint plan to reform the system which favors big operations over small farms, and generate support from citizens and policy-makers.

The campaign includes the Wisconsin Farmers Union, Family Farm Defenders, American Raw Milk Producers Pricing Association, Down River Alliance, CROPP/Organic Valley, Wisconsin Rural Development Center, Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture Production, Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade, Sierra Club, River Alliance of Wisconsin, Churches Center for Land and Peoples, Wisconsin Catholic Conference, Lutheran Office for Public Policy in Wisconsin, WISPIRG, as well as Wisconsin Citizen Action, the state’s largest consumer group.  (WSN steering committee member Caryl Terrell has been representing the Network at planning meetings.)

The coalition Steering Committee has developed an omnibus bill – the Family Farm Protection Act – designed to level the playing field for family farms while ensuring adequate environmental protection.  The Act would:

1. Eliminate Collusive and Anti-Competitive Practices (elements include establishing an agricultural anti-trust division in the state Attorneys General office and requiring the state to investigate the socio-economic impacts of concentration).
2. Establish Price and Market Reform (elements include requiring mandatory price reporting and prohibiting volume premiums).
3. Promote Development of Producer-Owned Processing Facilities.
4. Reform the Credit and Agricultural Financing System to benefit small farms.
5. Strengthen Environmental Standards for Large-scale Operations (elements include defining all livestock operations over 1,000 animal units as “industrial operations,” establishing air quality standards for hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, and restoring local control over permitting decisions).
6. Address Small Farm Environmental Issues (elements include cost-sharing, on farm research for lower cost alternatives and "Purchase of Development Rights" legislation).
7. Establish Tax Incentives and Disincentives to promote family farms over industrial operations.