A new legal group will focus on “dismantling corporate agriculture,” particularly consolidation in the meat industry.
FarmSTAND, originally founded as the Food Project at Public Justice, has an 11-person staff that Jessica Culpepper, the group's executive director, hopes will grow quickly.
Independent farmers and ranchers, food chain workers and other groups involved in the same space have said they appreciated the work being done by the Food Project, but “we need more people doing it,” Culpepper told Agri-Pulse.
Culpepper says the group will be “hyper-focused on industrial animal agribusiness,” mentioning litigation the Food Project has already brought challenging the beef checkoff program and meat companies’ treatment of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
FarmSTAND “will move forward as a separate organization to drive precedent-setting litigation and mobilize a nationwide network of volunteer attorneys representing communities impacted by corporate agriculture,” the group said in a news release.
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Many farm groups have been critical of Public Justice, particularly the National Cattlemen's Beef Association; in 2022, NCBA CEO Colin Woodall argued argued the firm included "lawyers who are closely aligned with extremist animal rights groups."
Culpepper said the group will operate with donations from “a variety of funders.”
“It's generally people who are interested in one of a few different issue areas – either sustainable food, or worker justice, or specifically around opening markets up to independent farmers and ranchers, [as well as] folks who care about the environment and the impact of monopolies that are producing things in a way that are pretty pollution-oriented.”
Eowyn Corral, development and program director at previous Food Project client Dakota Rural Action, said she hopes to see the new group work to further the goal of the former Public Justice entity.
“We're trying to make it so that very large – what we would refer to as industrial agriculture – doesn't continue to utilize different taxpayer funded programs to further the consolidation of the market,” she said.
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