FarmStand

04/21/2026

The USDA announced last week that they're creating a new Office of Seafood to give industrial aquaculture the same access to the USDA's programs and support as animal ag.

It's part of the Trump administration's push to expand US industrial fishing. The problem is that industrial aquaculture comes with the same harms as industrial ag, including animal abuse, worker rights violations, and environmental destruction.

As aquaculture corporations take advantage of their new access to the USDA to grow their operations, this is the time for legal advocates and regulators to force the industry to protect workers, animal welfare, and fishing communities.

04/20/2026

Most people don't realize that ag workers are excluded from many basic labor rights, including overtime pay, the minimum wage, and the right to unionize. This is one example of ag exceptionalism, where special rules are created for ag in order to protect their profits. If we're going to create an equitable food system, we need to address the racist origins of these laws and how they enable exploitation.

04/15/2026

For generations, USDA has shut out Black farmers from funding and programs. Now, it's cut the ILCMAP program that meant to help underserved farmers--all part of the Trump Admin's crusade against what it calls "DEI."

Capital B reports on the impact these reckless cancelations have on Black farmers:

The department nixed a Biden-era program meant to help underserved producers with access to land, capital, and markets.

04/14/2026

“They don’t want to shut the meatpacking plants down,” she said. “That would cost the meatpacking companies millions of dollars a day.”

Meatpacking giants like Smithfield rely on immigrants to do backbreaking work in their plants. Then they stay silent when ICE targets immigrants in small towns, shattering families, destabilizing the local economy, and leaving remaining workers to shoulder dangerously high workloads.

Key reporting out of Milan, Missouri from Investigate Midwest:

Leer en español. Eliseo Affholter noticed a car following him, moving slowly as he walked through the streets of Milan, Missouri. Walking was his wind-down routine after work at a Kraft Heinz plant, where on Feb. 24, he had just finished a 12-hour overnight shift.  As he walked along East Grand Av...

04/13/2026

Herbicides like glyphosate are extremely dangerous to children's health. Yet US law allows kids as young as 12 to labor in fields where they are exposed to hazardous pesticides and other dangers.

As Monsanto asks SCOTUS for impunity for the health costs of Roundup, our latest blog highlights the toll that the industrial food system takes on children. https://farmstand.org/child-farmworkers-suffer-in-our-food-system-will-the-supreme-court-make-things-worse/

Our food system shouldn’t be controlled by powerful corporations who re-write the rules to escape responsibility for harm they cause.

A fair food system produces food that is nourishing and safe to eat. That food emerges from soil that is fertile and rich, rather than depleted by cancer-causing pesticides and herbicides. In a fair food system, the farmworkers that harvest our food are treated with dignity and fairly paid. And thos...

04/09/2026

“We’re seeing the ripple effects of this blunderbuss approach.” FarmSTAND's David Muraskin spoke to Inside Climate News about how USDA's sloppy, illegal grant cancelations are impacting farmers across the country.

An Inside Climate News analysis found the department lost 21 percent of its workforce in 2025. Those cuts have thrown it into disarray.

04/07/2026

Big Ag has a stranglehold on every level of the beef market. Just 82 feedlots account for 35% of cattle slaughtered in the US.

Corporate consolidation of the beef industry is driving independent ranchers and farmers out of business. Meanwhile, the "Big Four" meatpackers get rich off exploiting workers, animals, and consumers.

Investigate Midwest

04/07/2026

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04/01/2026

Monsanto wants us to believe that their pesticides—and the health and environmental harms that come with them—are necessary for modern farming. Farmers and farmworkers know that’s not true.

We just filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court , joined by 15 farmer and farmworker advocacy groups. They want Monsanto and other Big Ag pesticide companies to be accountable for the cancers and other health problems that their products cause.

Learn more ➡️ https://farmstand.org/farmer-farmworker-groups-urge-supreme-court-to-reject-roundup-impunity-for-monsanto-in-new-amicus-brief/

03/31/2026

Ag gag laws are a Big Ag tactic to criminalize or penalize whistleblowing and keep us uninformed about how our food is made.

If this was news to you, share this post and follow us to keep learning things that Big Ag doesn't want you to know.

03/30/2026

Well put from FoodPrint: “Finfish aquaculture essentially replicates the worst ideas of land-based factory farming and moves them to the ocean”

It’s not too late to stop Big Aqua before it repeats Big Ag’s harms.

The MARA Act could fast-track offshore fish farming and faces widespread opposition from fishermen, scientists and environmental advocates.

03/27/2026

If you take Big Ag and Big Oil execs at their word, they’ve found the miracle solution to climate change.

We’re calling B.S.

Factory farm gas doesn’t solve Big Ag’s sustainability problems—but it does create a bevy of new ones. Our latest blog breaks down the truth about "biogas" ➡️https://farmstand.org/this-sht-stinks-big-ag-and-big-oils-dirty-biogas-scam/