Cutting meat in slaughterhouse. Butcher cutting pork at the meat manufacturing.

How Small Ranchers are
Forced to Pay for Big Ag

Deep Dive: Checkoff System

How Small Ranchers are
Forced to Pay for Big Ag

Many people may not recognize the word "checkoff," but they recognize the checkoff ads—"Got Milk?," "Beef. It's What's For Dinner," "The Incredible, Edible Egg." The latest in FarmSTAND's deep dive series explores checkoff corruption and how to end it.

Fighting for a fair food system in courtrooms and comunities.

We're in court to restore illegally cancelled funding that had supported a more sustainable and fair agriculture system.

Suing Trump's USDA

Fighting for a fair food
system—in courtrooms and communities

Supporting Farmers & Rural Communities

Rural communities need fair markets to thrive. But Big Ag uses their power to control markets, pollute family farms, and steal land and labor from rural communities, forcing local farmers and ranchers out of business.

Fair Markets For Farmers

Supporting Farmers &
Rural Communities

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Two farmworkers in hoodies bend over to harvest strawberries in a field

Protecting Workers &
Immigrant Communities

We are representing the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center in their case against the state for illegally denying workers compensation to undocumented immigrants. Getting injured at work should never mean losing your income or ability to take care of your family.

Justice for Immigrant Workers

Protecting Workers &
Immigrant Communities

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Suing Trump's USDA

Exposing Beef Checkoff Corruption

Protecting Immigrant Workers

Supporting Farmers & Rural Communities

We’re Fighting for a Fair Food System

FarmSTAND is the only legal group in the country dedicated solely to taking on Big Ag. We partner with directly impacted groups to fight in courtrooms and communities for better working conditions, humane treatment of animals, clean air and water, and food that’s safe to eat.

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We Need More Attorneys and Law Students to Join the Movement

Across the nation, industrial agriculture facilities are moving into places where their pollution and exploitative work practices are hurting communities. With our help, you can be part of a network that brings legal support to rural residents, farmers, and workers impacted by the factory farm system.

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Recent Cases

No Greenwashing Factory Farm Gas (Blumm v. Northwest Natural Gas Co.)

Utility companies shouldn’t be allowed to exploit public concern about climate change to prop up polluting factory farms. Customers of Oregon’s Northwest Natural Gas are suing the company over misleading claims at the heart of its Smart Energy program, which the company advertises as a…

Center for Biological Diversity v. Swift Beef

FarmSTAND (formerly the Food Project at Public Justice), as well as in-house counsel, represented the Center for Biological Diversity and Food & Water Watch in a lawsuit against JBS-Swift Beef Company to stop illegal discharges of slaughterhouse pollution into Colorado’s South Platte River. The Lone...

Workers’ Compensation for Michigan’s Undocumented Workers (MIRC v. Whitmer)

Everyone should be able to work in conditions that are dignified, fair, and healthy, and getting injured at work should never mean losing your income or ability to take care of your family. However, for the past 17 years undocumented workers in Michigan who suffer serious workplace injuries have been unjustly denied workers’ compensation wages while they are recovering.

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In The News

Keep In Touch For Updates and Action Alerts

We’re Fighting for a Fair Food System

We Need More Attorneys and Law Students to Join the Movement

Recent Cases

No Greenwashing Factory Farm Gas (Blumm v. Northwest Natural Gas Co.)

Center for Biological Diversity v. Swift Beef

Workers’ Compensation for Michigan’s Undocumented Workers (MIRC v. Whitmer)

In The News

Keep In Touch For Updates and Action Alerts

FarmSTAND

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