As the owner of a multi-generational farm, Mardesen has seen industrial agriculture and factory farming take increasing control over meat production in the last few decades. With that has come the extreme overuse of antibiotics in livestock farming.

“You know, we want to produce more pounds of pork, more pounds of beef, more pounds of chicken on smaller and smaller resources. The best way they have come up with to continue with this efficiency push is to pound antibiotics,” says Mardesen. “I have never been comfortable taking an animal as intelligent as a pig and cramming them into a concrete box for the sake of efficiency.”

A recent report released by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that antibiotic sales for meat production increased by 4 percent from 2021 to 2022, with pigs and cattle accounting for the majority of sales. Antibiotic sales for animal use peaked in 2015, after which the FDA banned the use of antibiotics for animal growth, leading to a major decline in antibiotic sales the following year. But from 2017 onwards, antibiotic sales for livestock farming have steadily risen each year, increasing 12 percent from 2017 to 2022.

“I have never been comfortable taking an animal as intelligent as a pig and cramming them into a concrete box for the sake of efficiency.” 

About 70 percent of medically important antibiotics in the US are sold for animals, not humans. The more an antibiotic is used, the more both animals and humans develop resistance to them, which significantly lowers the effectiveness of the intervention, says Steve Roach, food program director at Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), an organization that advocates for humane farming. 

While antibiotics were originally used to treat sick animals, in the 1940s, farmers discovered regular antibiotic use could make animals grow faster in less time and with fewer resources. 

Although the US banned the use of antibiotics for growth, they are still used for disease prevention and disease control. If one animal gets sick, the entire group is often treated because they live in such close proximity to one another. 

Nearly a third of medically important antibiotics have no duration limit, meaning a farmer can use those antibiotics in feed for as long as they want to prevent disease. Roach says this allows farmers to keep animals in poor living conditions that are more likely to get them sick.

Ron Mardesen stopped the use of routine antibiotics nearly 40 years ago. (Photo courtesy of Ron Mardesen)

Antibiotic use is particularly common on factory farms, where certain practices lead to disease in animals. Cattle are often fed a corn or soy diet instead of grass, which can lead to illness. Baby pigs are weaned off their mother’s milk and fed solid foods before they’re ready, causing diarrhea. 

“Having animals close together in crowded conditions, it saves you money, but also disease can easily spread,” says Roach. “You give them a diet that causes problems, so you basically just feed them antibiotics continuously.”

Lynn Utesch, a cattle farmer in Kewaunee County, Wisconsin—a region often referred to as CAFO alley for its high concentration of factory farms—discovered early on that, with the right methods, he doesn’t need antibiotics to raise his cattle. He and his wife Nancy own a 150-acre grass-fed beef farm and use a rotational grazing method. Every two days, they move their cows to a new pasture and the animals have plenty of space from one another. In his 30 years farming, Utesch has never had to use antibiotics on his cattle, not even for treatment. 

“If you allow the animal to eat its natural diet, if you allow it to live the way that nature intended out in the open air and where it cannot be confined tightly to the other cows, then you don’t have any need for antibiotics because those animals are completely healthy,” says Utesch.

Lynn and Nancy Utesch. (Photo courtesy of Lynn Utesch)

When the Utesches started farming, their customers expressed a preference for antibiotic-free, grass-fed beef. It was hard to find that elsewhere at the time. These days, it’s what many consumers look for. A 2021 poll found that “antibiotic-free” labels are important to two-thirds of Americans when buying meat.

Despite this priority, labeling is far from straightforward. From “antibiotic-free” to “no antibiotics routinely used” to “antibiotics may be used,” there are plenty of ambiguities within labeling and there is little room for nuance, says Roach. Antibiotics were designed to treat sick animals, but the overuse and lack of transparency has led to “an all-or-nothing mindset” and negated their original intent, he says.

FACT supports antibiotic use for animal treatment, but only if it is approached with transparency and communication between the farmer and the certifier. The Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington University is developing a “certified responsible antibiotic use” label, which would allow antibiotics for treatment but not for prevention.

“When you do use antibiotics for treatment, you need to report that to the certifier and let them know. And so we kind of prefer that label, but it’s harder to communicate that to the consumer,” says Roach. 

Unlike Utesch, Mardesen of A-Frame Acres does use antibiotics to treat a pig if it falls ill, but he uses a strict documentation process. He has to clearly identify the animal, what type of antibiotic was administered, the outcome of the treatment and where the animal was marketed. He cannot sell that pork to Niman Ranch, which has a strict “no-antibiotics ever” policy.

“If I do get an animal that does get sick, because I don’t routinely always throw antibiotics at these animals, when I have to treat an animal, the antibiotics that are available to use work a lot better on the farm,” says Mardesen.

Limiting antibiotic use will likely require stricter regulation from the FDA and more transparency in labeling. The USDA is considering implementing higher standards for meat to be labeled antibiotic free. But both Mardesen and Utesch say it starts with changing practices that benefit the animals so antibiotics aren’t needed for prevention or control. If there wasn’t such a focus on yield and production in the food system, fewer animals would be crammed into tight spaces and fed poor diets, says Utesch.

As a consumer, Utesch says the best thing you can do is educate yourself and learn where your food comes from. Look for organic and grass-fed meat, understand the different labels and, most of all, build a relationship with your local farmer. 

“Find a farmer, and not only just pick up the product the farmer has, but have a relationship where you say, ‘What does rotational grazing mean? Or outdoor access? What does that mean to you?’ Have a conversation about how an animal is actually raised and handled,” says Nancy Utesch. 

The post On the Ground with the Farmers Producing Antibiotic-Free Meat appeared first on Modern Farmer.

“They see us as workers that they can exploit, pay a lesser wage to, that they can replace with machines. But we are the people in the first line of this food chain, and we have to be recognized and respected as such,” says Jiménez.

In 2016, Jiménez started Alianza Agricola, an undocumented farmworker-led advocacy organization fighting for farmworker rights in western New York. In 2019, the group helped in the fight to pass the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act (FLFLPA), a law that grants various labor rights such as collective bargaining, day of rest and overtime pay to farmworkers in the state of New York. It was a huge win, but it’s just the beginning of what’s needed.

Jiménez is not alone in his experience. An estimated 21.5 million people work to grow, harvest, process, pack, transport and sell the food that feeds Americans. Many of them put their well-being at risk to do so. Although undocumented workers face an extra set of challenges, millions of food and farmworkers, regardless of immigration status, are exposed to unsafe working conditions and paid low wages. 

According to the Institute of Health, farmworkers are 35 times more likely to die of heat exposure. They are at risk for injury and illness from heavy machinery or pesticide exposure and in recent years have been disproportionately exposed to wildfire smoke and COVID-19. The vast majority of food and farmworkers are paid low wages, are ineligible for paid sick leave and are not entitled to overtime pay. Advocates say this year’s Farm Bill, a package of legislation passed every five years, presents an opportunity for some of these conditions to change, or at least improve.

The Farm Bill covers programs ranging from crop insurance to conservation incentives to nutrition assistance and more. It is incredibly influential, yet since its inception in 1933, the Farm Bill has failed to include protections for food and farmworkers. Labor rights are technically outside of the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) jurisdiction and covered by the Department of Labor, but their exclusion still reflects how our food system treats its workers, explains Sophie Ackoff, the Farm Bill campaign director at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). 

“Our tax dollars, our programs, are focused on the success of farmers and agribusinesses. And those 21.5 million workers who are doing the bulk of not only the work but the danger of producing food for our country are not in any way protected by the USDA,” says Ackoff.

Jose Oliva, the campaigns director at the HEAL Food Alliance, says the exclusion of workers from the Farm Bill isn’t accidental but rather the result of an exploitative history of agricultural workers—the majority of whom were African American—when the first Farm Bill was written. The bill was written to support farm owners, not workers. Over time, this has turned into support for large agribusinesses, Oliva explains.

“It is essentially a way for the government to ensure that the average farmer is not the recipient of most of the benefits that are built into the farm bill,” he says.

UCS, HEAL Food Alliance and Alianza Agricola, along with other farmworker-led groups, have been advocating for various bills to be included in the upcoming Farm Bill, which was supposed to be renewed in September 2023 but was recently extended to the end of 2024.

Protecting America’s Meatpacking Worker Act

Data from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration has revealed that the meatpacking industry is one of the most dangerous jobs in the food system, recording a disproportionately high number of severe employee injuries. Oliva describes working conditions in the meatpacking industry as horrendous. “These are places where folks are and during the pandemic were forced to work even while everyone else was able to work from home or not work at all,” he says.

Nearly eight percent of all early COVID-19 cases and four percent of early COVID-19 deaths were connected to meatpacking plants. At the same time, the profit margins of the meatpacking industry have grown 300 percent since the start of the pandemic. This bill, introduced by Sen. Cory Booker and Rep. Ro Khanna, would ensure safer line-processing speeds and stricter standards to protect meat and poultry workers from injury. 

Supporting our Farm and Food System Workforce and The Voice for Farm Workers Act 

Introduced by Sen. Alex Padilla, the Supporting our Farm and Food System Workforce and the Voice for Farm Workers Act would give food and farmworkers a dedicated voice within the USDA and strengthen their role and collaboration in decision-making processes. Despite being essential workers, Jiménez says agricultural workers are rarely heard by those in power. He hopes that is starting to change.

“I think it’s time the government put their eyes on who we are and what we’re doing,” says Jiménez.

Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act

The United States uses more than a billion pounds of pesticides annually, a third of which are currently banned in the European Union. Each year, pesticide exposure harms as many as 20,000 farmworkers, causing them to suffer more chemical-related injuries and illnesses than any other workforce nationwide. Extreme heat also makes pesticides evaporate faster, a major concern as temperatures continue to rise due to climate change, Ackoff explains. The Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act would ban the use of more than 100 toxic pesticides proven to harm both farmworkers and the environment.

Agricultural Worker Justice Act

Agricultural workers are some of the lowest paid workers in the country. In 2020, they earned on average $14.62 per hour, but in many states, the average pay is less than that. For undocumented workers, who make up approximately 50 percent of the farm labor workforce, the pay is even more precarious.

The Agricultural Worker Justice Act, introduced by Sen. Peter Welsch and Rep. Greg Caesar, would ensure that the USDA only purchases food from companies that pay their employees a living wage and would give the federal government tools to regulate and enforce safer working conditions for food and farmworkers.

Across the country, 80 percent of voters support better protections for food and farmworkers. There is immense opportunity to better support the backbone of our $1.053-trillion industry food and agricultural sector, says Ackoff. This year’s Farm Bill is funding-neutral, meaning no additional funding will be added, which could be challenging for the programs mentioned to get adequate funding. But Ackoff is hopeful the one-year extension will give more time to advocate for these changes to be made. Looking beyond 2024, advocates and farmworkers alike continue to fight for long-term change in the food system and to pass bills such as the Fairness for Farm Workers Act, which would update the nation’s 85-year labor laws to ensure farmworkers are paid fairer wages and overtime pay. 

“That would be the most transformative,” says Ackoff.

For Jiménez, the fight for fair working conditions and respect goes beyond himself. Despite the risk, he says he will not stop advocating for what farmworkers—especially undocumented workers—deserve. He wants a better future for his children, one where their worth isn’t undermined by their employer.

“I think that we’re invisible still. And more than anything, we want respect and recognition,” says Jimenez.

The post Farmworker-Led Groups Push For Next Farm Bill to Include Worker Rights and Protections appeared first on Modern Farmer.

Everything changed when he visited a goat creamery in the Provence region of France while working for a wine company. Seeing a first-generation farmer successfully making and selling cheese opened Hennessy’s eyes to a life he’d never seriously considered before: that of a dairy farmer.

He started working on other farms, learning everything he could. In 2017, Hennessy, who identifies as a trans man, started Moxie Ridge Farm, a 46-acre farm in Washington County, NY.

Over the last century, the American farming industry has been dominated by straight, white, cisgender men. According to the 2017 Agriculture Census, 64 percent of American farmers are male and 95 percent of American farmers are white. That may be changing as a new generation of farmers enters the field. The United States Department of Agriculture doesn’t track statistics on sexuality or gender identity, but a survey conducted by the National Young Farmers Coalition found that 63.5 percent of farmers under the age of 40 identify as female, nonbinary or a gender other than cisgender male.

These diverse young and emerging farmers support one another with the hopes of shifting the idea of who is “supposed” to be farming. Hennessy, who has felt supported by his community now more than ever, hopes to be a visible role model for other young trans people who want to farm.

“It’s something I wish I had growing up and trying to figure out some of these larger life choices,” says Hennessy.

Throughout most of his life, Hennessy presented as a woman. It wasn’t until he started Moxie Ridge Farm that he got the space and time he needed to really explore his identity both as a farmer and as a person. When he came out as trans, Hennessy was welcomed with open arms by the farming community in Washington County, many of whom identify as queer themselves.

“A lot of people expect me to have horror stories, transitioning in a small rural town. And that’s just something that I don’t have to offer,” says Hennessy.

Hennessy uses behavior-based management with his goats. Every goat has a name and each goat has a distinct personality. (Photo by Nancy Giard)

Over time, Moxie Ridge Farm grew from a one-man operation with seven goats to a successful goat creamery with a full-time cheesemaker, a small staff and a herd of 75 goats. Hennessy wanted to build a farm with local, small-scale values that prioritized the well-being of animals and quality of the food being produced. In just seven years, that’s exactly what he did.

In March 2022, however, disaster struck and one of the farm’s boilers broke down. Without the boiler, the farm couldn’t pass inspection and Hennessy had to dump all of the milk—a devastating loss for Moxie Ridge. He estimates that the farm lost almost half its income for the year.

Hennessy’s insurance company said it would cover the damages. But after working with the insurance company for almost a year, the insurer pulled out in Jan. 2023 due to a clerical error it made. Hennessy was devastated. Without the insurance coverage, he feared he’d have to close the farm.

“A big part of me was angry, because it’s so hard for farmers to make it anyway. And all of the reasons why it looked like we had to close, it was this freak thing?”

After a machinery breakdown, Moxie Ridge had to sell part of its goat herd to cut costs. (Photo by Nancy Giard)

To cut costs, Hennessy took out loans, laid off staff and sold part of the goat herd. He spent every day grappling with how to save the farm he had worked so hard to build. Although the machine breakdown was out of his control, Hennessy says a part of him felt ashamed about the situation. 

But after some encouragement from a close friend, Hennessy shared his story with the community and started a GoFundMe with the goal of raising $45,000. If being vulnerable meant saving the farm, Hennessy said it would be worth it. 

Within a week, the campaign had raised more than $40,000. Friends, farmers and strangers from all over the country chipped in. Those who couldn’t give money offered what they could. A queer-owned farm in Granville, NY. offered to donate piglets. One woman painted watercolors of the farm’s goats. 

Hennessy says he’s never felt more supported by the community. After months of worrying whether he could pay the electric bill, whether he’d have to sell more goats or whether the farm would survive at all, he could finally start dreaming of a future for Moxie Ridge Farm.

Oona Montalvo painted watercolors of Moxie Ridge Farm after seeing the farm’s GoFundMe. (Photo by Lee Hennessy)

Going forward, Hennessy hopes Moxie Ridge Farm can become a safe place for other trans and queer people who want to learn how to farm. Just as so many in the farming community have embraced him, he hopes to do the same for others who may not think they belong in farming.

“No matter who you are, if you’re Black, disabled, trans, whatever you’re part of that’s not the basic ‘cis, white-man farmer in America’—there are people who have gone before you,” says Hennessy. “We just haven’t heard about them.”

The post Meet the Trans Dairy Farmer Who Wants to Be the Role Model He Never Had appeared first on Modern Farmer.

On Tuesday, farmers and their allies marched from Freedom Plaza to Capitol Hill, sharing stories of how the climate crisis has affected their farms and communities. On Wednesday, farmers and advocates met with various congressional offices to state their needs and what they want to see included in the upcoming bill.

The three-day event, called Farmers for Climate Action: Rally for Resilience, was organized by more than two dozen organizations, including the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) and the HEAL Food Alliance.

The Farm Bill is a package of legislation passed every five years that has a significant impact on the livelihoods of farmers around the country. Some of the top priorities for the event’s attendees are racial justice, farmworker rights, support for climate-friendly farming practices and equitable access to farmland. Nearly every demand emphasized that Congress should prioritize communities over corporations.

Racial justice

At the event’s press conference on Wednesday, Dorathy Barker, owner of Olusanya Farm in Oxford, N.C., said previous farm bills were never written with Black and Indigenous folks or people of color (BIPOC) in mind. 

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has a long history of discriminatory lending practices towards Black farmers. Many lending programs and incentives included in previous farm bills, such as the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP), were designed to protect the livelihoods of white farmers and agribusinesses, according to a report by the HEAL Food Alliance. 

“As much as things change, they stay the same for Black people,” says Barker. 

She wants to see more technical support and outreach assistance in Black communities. The problem isn’t a lack of funding — it’s distributing that funding to Black farmers on the ground, says Barker.

Farmers and their allies marched from Freedom Plaza to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, March 7. Photo by Marin Scotten.

Mercy Kariuki-McGee, co-founder of Haki Farmers Collective, says this united demand from farmers is happening at a crucial time, when immediate action is needed. 

“Black people, the people at the bottom, we are the ones who have to take on the heat. So we need solutions,” says Kariuki-McGee.

Farmworker rights

In its recommendations for the 2023 Farm Bill, the HEAL Food Alliance says the safety and well-being of food chain workers must be prioritized in policymaking in order to create an equitable food system.

Farmworker and advocate Marielena Vega says climate change has worsened the already harsh working conditions for farmworkers in recent years. In her hometown of Wilder, Idaho, there is little to no protection for farm workers from extreme heat, smoke from wildfires and poor air quality due to pesticide exposure.

A daughter of Mexican immigrants, Vega grew up watching her parents work long hours in Wilder’s apple orchards, where she eventually began working herself. She’s seen members of her community continue to work through illness and well into their eighties because they aren’t afforded the luxury of sick days or severance pay. 

Marielena Vega, a farmworker and advocate from Wilder, Idaho, addresses the crowd at the event’s press conference on Wednesday, March 8. Photo by Marin Scotten.

“As it stands right now, our farmworkers are out there every day, paid low wages, working under harsh conditions, missing out on core memories with their loved ones, being exposed to who knows what, just to not even be able to afford a day off or to afford the food that they grow and help harvest,” Vega said in her speech to the rally crowd on Tuesday. “That’s unacceptable.” 

Right now, workers in agriculture are exempt from overtime pay in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). According to the FLSA, farmworkers do not have to be paid time and a half for hours worked over 40 per week. Many states also exempt farmworkers from state-level minimum wage that is above the federal minimum of $7.25. 

Amy Tamayo, policy and advocacy coordinator at Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, says her organization is pushing for Congress to eliminate these wage exemptions. Alianza de Campesinas is the first national womens’ farmworker organization in the US. 

Women farmworkers are often most vulnerable to unsafe working conditions and face further challengessuch as sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination in the workplace, says Tamayo. She wants to see more outreach and support from the USDA to farmworker women.

Amy Tamayo is the policy and advocacy coordinator at Alianza Nacional de Campesinas. She attended the Rally for Resilience on Tuesday, March 7. Photo by Marin Scotten.

Climate-friendly practices

A major priority among all organizations that attended the event is support for farming practices that are climate-friendly and resilient to extreme weather conditions. This includes investments in organic, agroecological and regenerative systems.

Sarah Voiland, co-owner of Red Fire Farms, a 200-acre organic vegetable farm in Massachusetts, says worsening weather conditions make it a yearly challenge to keep farming. 

In 2021, Voiland lost a large amount of crop to record rainfall. In 2022, a severe drought was the challenge. She specifically wants the Agriculture Resilience Act to be included in this year’s Farm Bill. 

If implemented, the act would give farmers the tools they need for climate-friendly practices and increase their land’s resilience to extreme weather. It also includes financial assistance to improve soil health on agricultural lands, which Voiland says is crucial in sustaining small-scale farms. 

“There’s so much soil degradation that’s happened from mono-cropping industrial agriculture over the last seven years. We’ve lost so much and we need to fix that,” she says.

Access to land

Farmland has increasingly become a financial investment for multinational corporations and wealthy individuals in the last fifteen years. Many investors are buying large plots of farmland at high prices that small-scale farmers can’t afford. Because of this consolidation, farmland prices have nearly doubled since 2005, making land extremely inaccessible for beginning and young farmers. 

According to the National Young Farmers Coalition, secure access to farmland is the number one barrier for emerging farmers. Black farmers face additional challenges in acquiring farmland due to a long history of legal discrimination and lack of support from the USDA.

As part of its One Million Acres for the Future Campaign, the National Young Farmers Coalition called on Congress to invest $2.5 billion over the next 10 years to facilitate equitable land access for the next generation of farmers. 

“We need access. We need access to funding, we need access to land. I think land ownership is one of our biggest issues,” says Nyema Clark, a young farmer and the founder of Nurturing Roots Farm in Seattle, WA. 

It meant a lot to her to see so many people gathered in the nation’s capital to fight for a better food system.

“This is like a dream. Being able to be here with my sisters in farming, meeting more farmers of color that are out here trying to to save the world,” says Clark. 

Farmer Nyema Clark from Seattle, WA (right) marches in the Rally for Resilience on Tuesday, March 7. Photo by Marin Scotten.

Communities, not corporations

The many farmworkers at the event’s press conference were joined briefly by Congressman Ro Khanna, who stated his support and appreciation for the small-scale farmers who are stewarding land across the country. 

What needs to be addressed in policy is the corporate monopolization of nearly every aspect of agriculture, said Khanna. 

In July 2021, Khanna, along with Sen. Cory Booker, reintroduced the Farm System Reform Act to “create a level playing field for independent farmers” and “crack down on the monopolistic practices of meatpackers and corporate integrators.”

“You being here and you mobilizing will help us with these reform efforts, will help us take on these monopolies and will help us empower farmers to be part of the solution for climate,” Khanna said to the crowd of farmers on Wednesday morning.

The 2023 Farm Bill will be voted on by Congress later this year.

The post ‘Communities, Not Corporations’: Farmers March for Climate Action in D.C. appeared first on Modern Farmer.