Farmers & Rural Communities

Going on Offense for Food Justice: FarmSTAND’s 2025 in Review
2025 has been a hard year. From the start, the second Trump Administration has waged cruel assaults on America’s most vulnerable communities: immigrants, workers, activists, and anyone who dares to…
Reuters: USDA searched for terms like ‘diversity,’ ‘climate modeling’ to target grants for cancellation
"'(The termination process) has impacted organizations across the country and their ability to create a fairer food system, one that supports small local farmers, one that gets food to people…

Deep Dive: Trump’s Ten Search Terms to Cancel American Farmers
In 2025, USDA abandoned farmers by recklessly terminating millions of dollars in grants, all to fall in line with the Trump administration’s crusade against DEI, environmental justice, and climate action. We suspected that…

America’s unfair food system was built on lending discrimination. We’re fighting back.
American agriculture relies on credit as much as it does seeds, soil, rain, and sun. Without credit, farmers cannot invest in tractors, livestock, or new irrigation systems. They may not…
FarmSTAND Checkoff System “Deep Dive” to Reveal Who Benefits, Need for Reform
Food checkoff programs penalize independent producers of food by funneling money to the lobbying and trade organizations that boost the largest corporate producers, according to research featured in the latest…

Deep Dive: Checkoff
Farmers and ranchers have beef with the checkoff, the system responsible for slogans like “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner,” “The Incredible, Edible Egg,” and "Got Milk?" Food checkoff programs penalize…
Sentient Media: More Data From Farmers Could Help Scientists Better Track Avian Flu, But Privacy Concerns Stand in the Way
“It is incredibly difficult to get any kind of specific information about industrial farm operations, especially geospatial data because of an overlapping system of exemptions from the public records laws,”…
Colorado Public Radio: Dairy Worker Families Call for Reforms and Recognition After Tragic Accident Kills Six
“These are not ‘Old McDonald’s Farm’ with sort of a small scale and small risks. These are large industrial facilities,” said Kelsey Eberly, an attorney at FarmSTAND, a national organization…
POLITICO Pro: Federal judge rules some USDA grant terminations were illegal
“The Court’s granting of the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction is the only appropriate response to DOGE and USDA’s illegal and destructive grant cancellation,” David Muraskin, managing director for…