Missouri Rural Crisis Center

The Missouri Rural Crisis Center (MRCC) is a statewide farm and rural membership organization founded in 1985. Our mission is to preserve family farms, promote stewardship of the land and environmental integrity and strive for economic and social justice by building unity and mutual understanding among diverse groups, both rural and urban. MRCC represents independent family farmers, rural families and their communities and citizens concerned with our food supply, the environment, and democracy.

MRCC is a leading organization in Missouri organizing with rural communities to keep corporate concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) from replacing independent family farms. MRCC challenges agribusiness corporations that pollute the land, air and water, while at the same time controlling markets, putting family farms out of business and destroying the economies and fabric of rural communities.

MRCC plays a vital role in developing and supporting public policies that focus on fair and competitive agricultural markets – supporting sustainable agricultural practices and securing nutritious affordable food for everyone regardless of income. MRCC’s farm policy campaign is centered on the belief that widely held family farm ownership of land and equitable participation in decision-making are fundamental tenets of a democratic society.

Land Stewardship Project

The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1982 to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture and to develop sustainable communities.

LSP is dedicated to creating transformational change in our food and farming system. LSP’s work has a broad and deep impact, from new farmer training and local organizing, to federal policy and community based food systems development.

At the core of all our work are the values of stewardship, justice and democracy. LSP believes that by working together, culturally and racially diverse rural and urban people can take practical steps that result in greater stewardship of the land, more family farmers, healthy food for all and resilient, racially just communities.

LSP has offices in the Minnesota communities of Lewiston, Montevideo and South Minneapolis.

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement

Iowa CCI members create change through grassroots organizing, educating, and mobilizing on issues that impact our communities the most. Together, we work to put people and planet first by stopping factory farms and winning bold action on climate change, healthcare, a pathway to citizenship, good jobs, and clean water for everyone.

No matter where we come from, where we live, or what we look like, we need policies and an economy that serve the public good, not corporations and the wealthy few who rig the rules in their favor.

Iowa CCI members organize and build power for an equitable food and farm system that benefits everyone: family farmers, workers, eaters, and the environment. We’re fighting back against the factory farms that have polluted our water and devastated our communities for decades. Factory farms run by giant corporations like Cargill, Smithfield, and Tyson dump over 22 billion gallons of untreated, toxic liquid manure on farm fields across the state, causing Iowa’s water crisis. Iowa’s food and farm system should be in the hands of many diverse, independent family farmers, and local communities should have the final say on if a factory farm can build in our communities.

Iowa CCI members are fighting for:

• Local organizing campaigns that support clean air and water, and slow down the construction and expansion of factory farms.
• Stronger statewide enforcement of existing laws and regulations: stiffer fines and penalties, and Clean Water Act inspections and permits by the Iowa DNR.
• Stronger statewide policies, rules, and regulations: local control, a moratorium on factory farms, fairer tax policies, and a mandatory strategy to clean up our water (not the failed voluntary program we currently have).

Dakota Rural Action

Dakota Rural Action (DRA) organizes people and builds leadership while developing strong allied relationships. We protect environmental resources, advocate for resilient agriculture systems, and empower people to create policy change that strengthens their communities and culture.

We envision an active and engaged membership promoting healthy, beautiful and just food, agriculture, and energy systems that protect clean air, water and soil for all current and future inhabitants of South Dakota.

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy works locally and globally at the intersection of policy and practice to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems. IATP has a 30-year history of pursuing cutting edge solutions that benefit family farmers, rural communities and the planet.

IATP was founded amidst the family farm crisis of the mid-1980s as family farmers across America were in the fight of their lives. Deeply flawed national and international policies were the root cause of the crisis affecting farmers around the world. Many of those same challenges exist today, from excess corporate control and unfair markets, to weak protections of the land, air and water from environmentally-damaging factory farm systems of production, to inadequate support for community-based food systems. IATP connects the dots on where local, national and global policy intersect with high-level research and analysis and on-the-ground engagement to bring policies to fruition.

Food and Water Watch

Food & Water Watch mobilize regular people to build political power to move bold & uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people’s health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.

Food & Water Watch was founded as a response to the corporate control of our food and water systems in 2005. At Food & Water Watch we believe in asking for what we really want and need, not compromising on our health, safety, and a sustainable food system. That’s why we have organizers on the ground in states across the country to pass moratoria on factory farms and build federal support for a full transition of our food system.