Cases

In October 2012, the Center for Food Safety and the Community Association for Restoration of the Environment (CARE) warned four major Yakima Valley (Wash.) factory farms that they would take them to federal court unless the farms stopped contaminating local drinking water supplies with runoff from their dairy operations...

FarmSTAND (formerly the Food Project at Public Justice), Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, and Food & Water Watch filed a lawsuit against the State of Iowa claiming that the state has violated its obligation to protect the Raccoon River for the use and benefit of...

FarmSTAND (formerly the Food Project at Public Justice) 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 Tree Wastewater Treatment Plant in...

A coalition of groups representing family farmers, sustainable agriculture advocates and concerned citizens throughout the country filed suit against the United States Department of Agriculture. The suit aims to stop a USDA policy allowing industrial agriculture facilities to set up operations in communities without undergoing...

FarmSTAND (formerly the Food Project at Public Justice), Animal Legal Defense Fund, Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety, and Food and Water Watch sued the Farm Service Agency for their pattern and practice of violating the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The Farm...

In an historic victory, hundreds of mostly Black and brown community members in Eastern North Carolina won a series of mass action lawsuits against Smithfield for the public nuisance caused by factory hog farms. Smithfield’s factory farms, located largely in communities of color, produce copious...

FarmSTAND (formerly the Food Project at Public Justice) represented the Sierra Club in an enforcement action alongside the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) against Walnutdale Farms for violating a 2004 consent decree to clean up their act. The Great Lakes are known for their pristine waters,...

Industrial agriculture is a major driver of climate change. However, the Environmental Protection Agency has failed to treat the industry like the climate polluter it is. That is why FarmSTAND (formerly the Food Project at Public Justice) led 25 climate, environmental justice, and rural community...

In a landmark victory for clean water, two factory farms in Yakima, Washington agreed to clean up groundwater and limit future pollution – a result of our Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) case brought on behalf of the Community Association of Restoration of the Environment (CARE), Friends of Toppenish Creek, and Center for Food Safety.

Snake River Waterkeeper is using the Clean Water Act to hold agribusiness company Simplot accountable to the people of Idaho for dirtying the Snake River with factory farm pollution. Simplot’s Grand View Feedlot is one of the largest industrial ag operations in the country. With...

Like many other states, Indiana has a “Right-to-Farm” statute, meant to codify the coming to the nuisance doctrine—so city-dwellers cannot move to rural lands and demand farms change their operations. Corporate agribusiness has, however, been pushing efforts to expand the scope of these laws to...

“For years, I’ve been trying to figure out what was the cause of my son dying of an asthma attack. They’re saying it’s going to cost millions and millions and millions of dollars to fix the problem. . . . They let it go on...