Land Stewardship Project Hails Senate Action to
Ban Packer Ownership of Livestock
Organizing by Campaign for Family Farms was key to victory

"This is an historic action," said Mark Schultz, Policy Program Director for the Land Stewardship Project (LSP). "Responding to the will of the people, the U.S. Senate has finally told big agribusiness that they cannot control all of agriculture. We must now make sure the U.S. House of Representatives gets the same message and acts accordingly, and then move on to further progressive legislation on behalf of family farms, rural communities and the care of the land."

The Campaign for Family Farms, a coalition of Midwest grassroots family farm organizations, including LSP, hailed the passage of the amendment.

"This is a big victory in the fight against corporate concentration in agriculture. The Campaign for Family Farms stepped up the organizing for this vote four months ago," said Paul Sobocinski, an LSP hog farmer-member and spokesperson for the Campaign for Family Farms. "We worked closely with Minnesota Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone, who showed great leadership, as did South Dakota Democratic Senator Tim Johnson and Republican Senator Craig Thomas of Wyoming. The House of Representatives better follow the Senate because this is the direct voice of the people saying ban packer ownership of livestock."

The Campaign for Family Farms took the lead nationally in organizing for the amendment with phone banks, mass mailings and a media campaign targeted to livestock producers to support the amendment. The Campaign's work activated thousands of livestock producers from Maine to California to urge their senators to support the Johnson-Wellstone amendment. Working with the Campaign, 17 LSP members called hog farmers in 16 different states, while other members of the Campaign (Illinois Stewardship Alliance, Indiana Citizen Action Coalition, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and Missouri Rural Crisis Center) called hog farmers in other states. LSP co-strategized with other allies as well, such as the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. Finally, LSP and the Campaign for Family Farms met with Senator Wellstone and worked closely with his staff on the amendment.

"Over the past couple of weeks I have called hundreds of hog farmers about the Johnson-Wellstone amendment," said Iowa hog farmer Larry Ginter, a member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and spokesperson for the Campaign for Family Farms. "The response has been overwhelming. They really raised their voices on this one. It is good that the voice of the people can still be heard in this country."

"This is a major victory in establishing fair and competitive markets for family farmers. We knew all along how the Senators for Smithfield [Republican Senators George Allen and John Warner of Virginia) would vote," said hog farmer Rhonda Perry, a member of Missouri Rural Crisis Center and spokesperson for the Campaign for Family Farms. "But other Republicans and Democrats across the country voted with their farmer and rancher constituents on this one."

Over the past five years, direct ownership of livestock by pork and beef processors has escalated sharply. In the hog industry, this has gone hand-in-hand with the expansion of factory farms across the countryside, as packers such as Tyson/IBP, Premium Standard Farms, Cargill and Smithfield all have established huge sow herds. These firms raise the breeding stock and their offspring in confinement buildings of unprecedented size, generating massive adverse impacts on the surrounding environment. Smithfield Foods alone, following an aggressive acquisition and expansion policy, is now the number one pork packer in the country and owns 711,000 sows, producing more than 14 million hogs per year. In comparison, the vast majority of Midwestern family farm hog producers own between 30 and 250 sows.

"University studies show that the small- to medium-sized hog producers are very competitive in terms of cost of production. Efficiency is not the issue-we can compete," said Minnesota hog farmer and LSP Board member Monica Kahout. "The fact is, corporate packers like Smithfield, Tyson and Cargill are trying to take away our livelihood by controlling the livestock, not because we can't compete, but because we are their stiffest competition. So they are controlling the market and killing competition with captive supplies in order to either put us out of business, or make us raise their factory-farm hogs for them through one-sided production contracts."

The full Senate Farm Bill is still being debated, but Kahout said the passage of the Johnson-Wellstone amendment is a hopeful sign.

"The Wellstone-Johnson amendment to ban packer ownership is a big first step to addressing this economic injustice being forced on rural communities by corporate meatpackers," Kahout said. "The farmers I called-in Oregon, South Carolina and Maryland-didn't know how to address this injustice, but when we called from the Campaign for Family Farms they joined in our grassroots campaign. This victory is a big boost to family farm livestock producers' morale, as well as a political victory. It was won through grassroots democracy, and was carried by political leaders with backbone, like Senator Paul Wellstone."

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