Last month, Missouri Rural Crisis Center held a telephone town hall with thousands of Missourians across our state. The conversation focused on how we can work together to stop foreign corporate ownership of Missouri farmland, which is an important task we have to undertake.
But, foreign corporate ownership of Missouri farmland is a symptom of an even larger challenge we are facing — the corporate, multinational takeover of our farm and food system.
Over the last 30 years, we’ve witnessed corporations seizing entire industries through concentration, mergers, industrialization, and vertical integration. This type of monopolistic control of our markets and food system puts family farmers out of business, pushes people off the land, extracts vast wealth from our communities, pollutes our air and water, and threatens our national security.
This isn’t just talk.