Want Healthier Food, Cleaner Air and Water? Break Big Ag’s Grip on Farmers, Food Prices, and Rural America.
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Something has gone profoundly wrong in rural America.
For more than four decades, the federal government — under both political parties — has allowed a handful of corporations to seize control of the nation's food system, its farms, and its rural communities.
The consequences have devastated rural America and the farmers who grow our food.
They have driven the cost of groceries skyward for every American who eats.
Four companies now control 85 percent of the beef Americans eat. Five grocery retailers control half of all grocery sales nationwide — buying power that has squeezed independent grocers out of business and left countless small towns without a locally owned place to buy fresh food.
In rural America, the consequences are there for all to see.
Family farms have disappeared.
Main Streets have emptied.
Schools have consolidated.
Rural hospitals have been shuttered.
Young people have left with little reason to return.
And the communities that grow our food and raise our livestock have been forced to bear the staggering environmental and public health costs of industrial agriculture — polluted water, degraded land, and the illnesses that come with them.
Every American who shops for groceries pays more — not because farmers are prospering, but because the corporations standing between the farmer and the consumer have captured an ever-larger share of every food dollar.
This did not happen by accident.
It happened because the rules were written for corporations instead of people.
It happened because lobbying money flowed freely while the political will to resist it withered.
It happened because Washington looked the other way while consolidation quietly strangled competition, hollowed out rural communities, and rigged the markets that farmers, ranchers, and independent businesses depend upon to survive.
The men and women who grow America's food are among the hardest-working people in this nation.
They deserve fair prices, honest markets, and the freedom to farm without corporations dictating their contracts, controlling their inputs, and setting the terms.
No one who works hard and plays by the rules should struggle to afford the basics.
Rural communities deserve hospitals, schools, grocery stores, and local businesses that allow families to build prosperous lives and give young people a reason to stay.
Every American — regardless of where they live — deserves a food system that serves them rather than corporate monopolies.
A Bill of Rights does not ask for special treatment from our government.
It asks for fair treatment for the people who feed America and the places they call home.
It asks for honest competition instead of corporate control.
It asks for markets that reward hard work instead of monopoly power.
And it asks that the people of rural America enjoy the same opportunity, prosperity, and quality of life as their suburban and urban counterparts.
It is neither a Republican nor Democratic document.
It is an American document.
The corporations that have captured our food supply don't write checks to just one party — they buy influence in both. And the people paying the price — farmers, ranchers, rural families, and every American who eats — span every party, every state, and every ZIP code.
We are the Rural Independence Initiative.
A movement to lift our towns, build prosperous rural communities, save our rural schools and hospitals, and restore fair markets for the farmers who grow our food.
Join Us - farmactionfund.us
Donate - farmactionfund.us/donate
Joe Maxwell, President
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America's promise has never been that prosperity belongs to a few.
The promise of America is that every person deserves a fair opportunity to build a good life through hard work, responsibility, and service to others.
But opportunity cannot flourish when power is concentrated in the hands of monopolies, oligarchs and billionaires.
Shared prosperity requires markets that actually work.
For decades, rural America has generated wealth for others while too little has been invested in rural America.
Rural America cannot flourish when power is concentrated in the hands of monopolies and oligarchs.
Shared prosperity requires an economy that also works for working people.
Markets work best when competition is real, rules are fair, and concentrated power is restrained.
A market without competition isn't capitalism — it's exploitation.
We fight so that the next generation inherits a country where every person has a fair opportunity to prosper — one where we acknowledge that our own prosperity is strengthened when our rural counterparts can prosper as well.
Neither party in Washington has delivered it.
We fight for policies and legislation that support the rights, liberties and freedoms that unlock the entrepreneurial spirit and fuel the aspirations of working Americans, so that they too can share in opportunity’s bounty.
We seek to do it through open dialogue and civil discourse. That is the America we long for today, and the America that the Rural Independence Initiative exists to restore.
We are the Rural Independence Initiative.
A movement to lift our towns, build prosperous rural communities, save our rural schools and hospitals, and restore fair markets for the farmers who grow our food.
Join Us - farmactionfund.us
Donate - farmactionfund.us/donate
Joe Maxwell, President
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Today, Farm Action Fund’s Rural Independence Initiative announced its endorsement for Independent candidate Dan Osborn @osbornforne for U.S. Senate in Nebraska. Nebraska’s economy has been hit hard by the farm crisis, particularly in its cattle sector. The Rural Independence Initiative focuses on electing the best federal candidates, regardless of political affiliation, who support local farmers, rural America, and healthy food and challenge corporate monopolies.
The endorsement of Osborn is especially significant because his independent candidacy embodies the Rural Independence Initiative’s commitment to supporting candidates based on whom they represent and the policies they support—not the political party they belong to.
Farm Action President and fourth-generation farmer Joe Maxwell said, “We are proud to back independent mechanic Dan Osborn for U.S. Senate. He has been a fearless champion for Nebraska farmers and ranchers confronting the power of the corporate beef monopoly that has been sucking wealth out of rural Nebraska. But this endorsement is especially significant because Dan is doing something increasingly rare in American politics: He is running as an independent, outside the two-party structure, and asking voters to judge him by whom he will fight for rather than which party he will answer to. That independence reflects what the Rural Independence Initiative is about—putting farmers, workers, and rural communities ahead of party loyalty and giving them an independent voice in Washington.”
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Farm Action Fund endorsee @SarahforIowa Sarah Trone Garriott new ad rightly notes @NunnForCongress Zach Nunn selling out Iowa farmers to China through his support of the EATS/Save Our Bacon Act
piped.video/watch?v=sXnh3_Nf…
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Opposition to this bad bill is a broad coalition from all diverse perspectives!
“Save our Bacon” act - China and Big Ag pushing trash food standards on us. Exact opposite of MAHA. iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026…
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Farm Action Fund endorsee @realannapaulina has been a courageous champion against Bayer Monsanto, Smithfield and other corporate ag interests, challenging her own party and the bipartisan corruption that exists in DC to fight for farmers and consumers
semafor.com/article/09/14/20…
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It was great news to see the Senate Ag Committee reject @senjoniernst attempt to include Save Our Bacon Act language into the Farm Bill. Iowa family farmers know this bill only helps China-owned Smithfield profits. @hinsonashley @repMMM @nunnforcongress should stop carrying their water for this overreaching DC bill that tramples on state sovereignty and has opposition from a wide ranging coalition of all political stripes!
‼️ GREAT NEWS! ‼️
Together, we stopped the pro-China “Save Our Bacon Act” in the Senate today… for now. It was a total shit show during the Senate Agricultural Committee hearing today.
Not only was Senator Mitch McConnell @SenMcConnell in attendance while completely brain dead, comatose and needing instructions on how to vote, but this afternoon, Senate Agricultural Chairman John Boozman @JohnBoozman and the Senate Agriculture Committee @SenateAgGOP rejected a sad, desperate, and disruptive attempt by Senator Joni Ernst @SenJoniErnst to sneak a version of her toxic pro-CCP “Save Our Bacon Act” (SOB) into the Farm Bill before Congress leaves DC till the end of the November midterms.
Watch the video below. 👇🏻 She had a full blown meltdown!
As Sen. Boozman attempted to quickly take votes and pass the Farm Bill to give Republicans a small victory before the midterms, Joni Ernst kept interrupting with pre-scripted talking points in a last ditch effort to give the CCP and China’s President Xi a gift in the form of the SOB Act before his highly controversial state visit with President Trump in DC next week.
Ernst’s insistence that the SOB Act be added to the bill would have put the entire bill in jeopardy.
Thank you Sen. Boozman for holding the line.
Shame on Joni Ernst for simping for China and Smithfield @SmithfieldFoods, which is owned by China’s WH Group.
As I’ve been reporting, Smithfield has been lobbying Congress (and donating to political campaigns like Ernst’s) and the Trump Administration to push for policies like the SOB Act that give Communist China more control over our food supply and farm land. This only serves to help the CCP undermine our country. I also exposed how Smithfield’s lobbyists have been hiding the company’s China ties in violation of federal lobbying rules.
As the Farm Bill heads to the full Senate for a vote, Republicans need to go on the record and promise to kill any and all attempts by Ernst to help her friends in China and hurt American voters, consumers, and American farmers.
The “Save Our Bacon Act” should have its name changed to “Save China’s Bacon Act”.
Ernst is retiring from the US Senate at the end of the year. It makes you wonder if she’s been promised a job or a board position with @SmithfieldFoods, @NPPC the National Pork Producers Council, or the pork industry in some capacity when she leaves Congress.
Why is she so adamant about helping a Chinese owned pork company screw over American farmers?
WATCH Senator Ernst’s full meltdown today below. 🐷
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Out-of-touch @hinsonashley Ashley Hinson doesn’t get farmers confronting $6 diesel costs as harvest awaits is NOT out of sight or out of mind when it comes to war with Iran
Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson, running for Senate in Iowa, claims the Iran war is "thousands of miles away. It is out of sight, out of mind for so many Americans.”
(Hinson has defended the war and voted against war powers resolutions.)
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Harvest is underway. Combines are running around the clock. Grain trucks are on the road.
And diesel — the fuel that powers nearly all of it — just set a new record above six dollars a gallon.
Yet refiners are shipping massive volumes of American-made diesel overseas even as supplies at home run dangerously low. Roughly 1.7 million barrels a day are leaving the country while U.S. inventories shrink and the price skyrockets.
Farmers need affordable diesel right now. It runs the combines, the tractors, and every truck hauling this year's harvest.
The pain does not stop at the farm. Nearly everything on a grocery store shelf got there by truck. When it costs more to move food, it costs more to buy food.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said this week he is open to considering a ban on U.S. diesel exports.
We commend him for suggesting the idea.
We are the Rural Independence Initiative.
Fighting for rural America, the farmers who grow our food, and the Americans who eat it.
Join Us - farmactionfund.us
Donate - farmactionfund.us/donate
Joe Maxwell, President
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Zach Nunn cosponsored the giveaway to China-owned Smithfield with his Save Our Bacon Act and did nothing to get mandatory Country-of-origin labeling into the Farm Bill. Iowa family farmers deserve better.
Farm families are telling me the same things: costs are too high, margins are too tight, and Washington needs to deliver the certainty.
I secured 21 provisions in this year's Farm Bill, more than any other member of Congress, and got it through the House. Senate Democrats blocked it in committee.
The bill's ready. Let's set the partisan games aside and get it to the president's desk.
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Ed Henry reveals Republicans understand the massive opposition to @hinsonashley Ashley Hinson’s Save Our Bacon Act, but are too afraid to say so publicly for fear of harming her election.
A little scoop on how tight Midterm matrix is impacting legislation — sources indicate GOP opposition to the Save Our Bacon Act is bigger than it looks. Privately, many Senate Republicans feel it's bad policy — but they're staying quiet to avoid boxing in Ashley Hinson, the bill's sponsor, in Iowa's pivotal Senate race.
Their quiet hope: let it die in committee. No vote, no fingerprints …
ktiv.com/2026/09/09/iowa-por…
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We agree Laura that Americans from all across the political spectrum oppose @hinsonashley Save Our Bacon Act. We urge folks to let the Senate Ag committee know it should NOT be included in the Farm Bill this week!
Today, the US Senate returns to DC after a recess. Republicans are risking sinking their own Farm Bill to save China’s pork industry on US farmland.
Senate Agriculture Committee @SenateAgGOP Chairman John Boozman @JohnBoozman’s Farm Bill is already on very thin ice, and Rep. Ashley Hinson @hinsonashley and Sen. Joni Ernst @joniernst are putting it in further jeopardy by trying to add widely-opposed text that harms Americans and animals to benefit the Chinese Communist Party.
China wants to force American pig farms to look like this monstrosity below even though most people like me oppose this extreme animal cruelty, and voters in red and blue states have banned it.
The CCP found allies in Hinson and Ernst to add their so-called “Save Our Bacon Act,” or some version of it, to Boozman’s Farm Bill to overturn existing voter-approved state laws preventing extreme abuse of farm animals and to prohibit states from passing new anti-animal cruelty laws.
Both Ernst and Hinson have taken thousands of dollars in campaign donations from Smithfield, China’s pork division that operates in the U.S, and its U.S. lobbying group the National Pork Producers Council, which has two board members who come from China owned Smithfield.
I reported exclusively last week how Smithfield’s lobbyist was just busted for violating federal lobbying rules by hiding the company’s foreign ownership by China’s 万洲国际 (WH Group) in federal lobbying disclosure reports.
These Republicans, along with Democrats as well, are literally trying to force China’s disgusting animal abuse practices on U.S. consumers and American farmers by overriding voter-approved animal welfare laws and stripping states of the right to pass new pro-animal legislation.
As I told the press last year when I opposed this bill: I eat meat, but I also support humane animal treatment and states’ rights. Locking mother pigs in tiny metal crates that they can’t even turn around in is barbaric and unnecessary.
In China, they boil DOGS AND CATS alive and eat them! One of my four dogs was rescued from a Chinese meat market during COVID. We obviously should not let the CCP dictate how animals are treated here in the U.S.
I’m proud to join my fellow Floridians @SenRickScott Senator Rick Scott, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna @realannapaulina and Rep. Byron Donalds @ByronDonalds, who have been working hard to stop this attempt to nullify the will of voters, erode states’ rights and increase the CCP’s control over our food supply and farm land.
Americans should raise hell about this and call out any lawmakers who support the Save Our Bacon Act until Sen. Boozman promises not to include the Save Our Bacon Act or anything like it in the Farm Bill that is scheduled to be voted on again this week.
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We agree! Polls show bipartisan opposition to this terrible bill
We already have enough issues in our country, at the very least we should NOT be making the lives of farmers more difficult.
The “Save Our Bacon Act” shuts down markets that reward better practices and has a radically unserious name that irritates my soul iowacapitaldispatch.com/2026…
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Farm Action Fund held a press conference with farmers to talk about why the Save Our Bacon Act is only helping China-owned packers like Smithfield and how @hinsonashley is doing their bidding piped.video/8HnRRfvIhN4?is=GbYp…
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