We're farmers fighting for accountability from the government and the largest food and ag corporations.
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Skyrocketing diesel prices are hitting farmers hard, and the effects won’t stop at the farm gate.
“We have to harvest, we have to run the machines, we have to use the diesel.”
“The machine behind me uses 200 gallons a day. So we’ll harvest for about 30 days.”
“So there’s 6,000 gallons.”
And fuel is only one part of the equation.
Farmers are already facing rising costs for fertilizer, chemicals, and other inputs.
The system leaves farmers with little control over the prices they pay or the prices they receive.
They can absorb those increases for only so long before higher costs ripple through the food supply chain and hit consumers at the grocery store.
Meanwhile, some of the largest corporations controlling essential parts of that system are reporting billions in profits during the same crises driving costs higher.
Farmers and consumers shouldn’t keep getting squeezed while powerful corporations turn every new crisis into another opportunity to expand their margins.
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“From 2015 until January of 2026, you could take foreign meat, and as long as you put it in a package in the U.S., they considered that a ‘Product of USA.’”
Farmer Greg Gunthorp just exposed how corporations misrepresented commodity meat production and sold it as local meat.
In January 2026, a USDA rule took effect restricting “Product of USA” labels to meat from animals born, raised, and slaughtered in the U.S.
But that didn’t make it mandatory to label meat with its country of origin.
It only closed the loophole that allowed foreign meat to be labeled “Product of USA.”
If the Trump administration or Congress wants to solve this once and for all, they should restore Mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling.
@GGunthorp @SawyerWhisler @TorkWhisler
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This farm policy expert just exposed the monopoly holding independent poultry farmers hostage.
Austin Frerick: “A chicken farmer in America, you don’t own your chicken.”
“You’re given the bird, you’re given the feed by the company.”
“You take out a bunch of debt to build a building to their specifications.”
And farmers are not paid a “flat fee” for their birds.
They’re thrown into something called the tournament system, where corporations pit farmers against each other.
They rank each farmer based on how much weight their chickens gained and the amount of feed the farmers were given.
“Whoever adds the most gets paid the most.”
“Whoever adds the least gets paid the least.”
And the additional pay given to the best performers isn’t a bonus.
It’s money taken away from the lowest performers.
Corporations like Tyson and JBS-owned Pilgrim’s Pride realized that actually growing the birds is “the riskiest part.”
“So they basically contract that out to the farmer, put it on you, and then they do everything else.”
“They do all the value added.”
“They butcher it.”
“It is like textbook monopoly.”
“You’re basically shifting the cost on everyone else.”
The USDA was about to implement a new rule to reform this broken system this year.
The new rule would have banned payment deductions from lower-performing farmers, giving farmers some much-needed room to breathe.
But under President Trump and Secretary Brooke Rollins, USDA plans to roll back this important rule, despite our fierce opposition.
@AustinFrerick @PrairieFarmPod
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Imagine helping create a national food crisis, making billions of dollars from it, and facing a punishment of just $2.8 million.
That’s what could happen if Americans don’t speak out.
Farm Action estimates Cal-Maine’s total obligation under DOJ’s proposed egg price-fixing settlement would equal just 0.23% of its $1.22 billion in FY2025 profits.
If corporate wrongdoing remains profitable, what’s stopping it from happening again?
Americans have until October 17 to demand real consequences.
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A $2.8 million consequence for a company that made billions in profits isn’t much of a deterrent.
The DOJ is accepting public comments on its proposed egg price-fixing settlements until October 17.
Farm Action is calling for consequences strong enough to ensure price-fixing never becomes simply another cost of doing business.
Make your voice heard:
farmaction.us/tell-doj-egg-p…
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“They don’t live this life every day.”
“I bet they’ll belly up to a table for a nice steak when they’ve done their meetings… and it’s because of people like us.”
One farmer sounds off as proposed power lines for data centers threaten to cut directly through her property and take away a significant portion of her farmland.
“You mean to tell me that taking away my farm is going to be the answer to your problem with sourcing power to get to these centers?”
This is exactly why rural communities need a real say in how data center expansion happens.
Farmland, water, and energy infrastructure shouldn’t be sacrificed to serve some of the world’s largest corporations while farmers and rural residents shoulder the costs.
Data center developers should pay the full cost of their expansion, and rural communities deserve strong protections for the land and resources their livelihoods depend on.
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“Let it rip.”
That’s what an egg company executive allegedly wrote as Americans were getting hammered by skyrocketing egg prices.
The DOJ is accusing major egg companies of coordinating bids to drive prices higher, and the messages behind the case are stunning:
“We are bidding up. Let’s hold it today.”
“Strong bids, early and often.”
Now the DOJ has proposed settlements, and Farm Action estimates Cal-Maine’s total obligation would amount to just 0.23% of the company’s $1.22 billion in FY2025 profits.
Americans have until October 17 to weigh in before those settlements are finalized.
Every grocery shopper should see what these executives were allegedly saying behind closed doors.
Made with AI
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How do you deter corporate wrongdoing if breaking the law can still be profitable?
Farm Action estimates Cal-Maine’s total obligation under the proposed settlement would equal just 0.23% of its $1.22 billion in FY2025 profits.
Penalties that amount to a tiny fraction of corporate profits risk becoming little more than the cost of doing business.
Americans have until October 17 to weigh in.
Read what’s behind DOJ’s egg price-fixing case and why the proposed settlements matter:
farmaction.us/let-it-rip-the…
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“It’s probably costing us north of $2,000 a day just in fuel.”
Rising diesel prices are slamming American farmers.
One farmer shares how thousands of dollars in higher fuel costs are piling up every day.
“If you have market-ready steers, for instance, it’s probably north of $100 per head just to get them to a slaughter plant.”
Farmers can’t simply stop harvesting, hauling grain, or moving livestock when fuel prices spike.
The work still has to get done.
And unlike many of the powerful corporations throughout our food system, farmers can’t simply raise their prices to cover higher costs.
So when diesel rises, farmers get squeezed.
When those costs move through the food supply chain, consumers get squeezed too.
Meanwhile, some of the biggest corporations are reporting billions in profits.
Farmers and consumers shouldn’t have to absorb the cost of every crisis while powerful corporations use them to widen their margins.
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When diesel prices spike, the impact doesn’t stop at the farm.
Higher fuel costs make it more expensive to operate the tractors, trucks, trains, and ships that move our food, eventually putting pressure on what consumers pay at the grocery store.
Meanwhile, powerful corporations can use those same crises to widen their margins.
Farm Action is following what this means for farmers, consumers, and our food system.
Sign up for our newsletter:
farmaction.us/sign-up/
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EXPOSED:
A massive price-fixing scheme robbed Americans of billions of dollars from 2022 to 2025.
Three corporations allegedly conspired to illegally manipulate egg prices across the country.
And the DOJ is about to let them off the hook.
Bookmark this.
We began compiling evidence of this conspiracy in January 2023.
In 2022, avian flu spread across the egg industry.
Egg prices soared, and Americans were told reduced supply due to the avian flu outbreak was to blame.
But that didn’t add up.
Cal-Maine Foods, for example, had not yet reported a single case of avian flu at its facilities.
And they were reporting dramatically higher profits.
It wasn’t until March 2025, after we had sent multiple letters urging an investigation, that federal antitrust enforcers took action.
Their investigation uncovered widespread corruption at the highest levels of the egg industry.
Executives at Cal-Maine, Hickman’s Egg Ranch, and Versova illegally coordinated their bids on an egg-buying exchange to artificially inflate prices and make billions in profit.
The text messages that were exposed between these executives will shock you.
“We are bidding up.”
“Let it rip.”
After uncovering this blatant corruption, the DOJ is now on the verge of settlements that would cost one of the companies just $2.8 million.
That is only 0.23% of the $1.22 billion in profit that Cal-Maine reported in 2025 alone.
And the settlements would result in no criminal charges or admission of wrongdoing by the companies.
We are completely opposed to these settlements.
They do not even come close to being strong enough to deter this kind of price-fixing scheme from happening again.
And we need your help to urge the DOJ to abandon these proposed settlements and deliver real justice.
The DOJ is accepting public comments on their proposed settlements until October 17.
Read our new blog breaking down this case, the texts that were exposed, and how you can take action below:🧵
@AngelaSHuffman @NassMeryl
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The text messages between egg industry executives revealed in our new blog expose a massive price-fixing scheme.
And the DOJ is about to let them off the hook.
Unless you speak up.
Read our blog and find out how you can take action below: farmaction.us/let-it-rip-the…
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Farmer Will Harris just revealed the incredible results that regenerative farming has achieved for his family’s farmland.
“The impact on the land is inarguable.”
“When I started changing the farm, the organic matter in my soil was about 0.5%.”
“Today, it’s about 5.5%.”
“This is land that my great-grandfather acquired… in 1866.”
“I’m told that 1% organic matter will hold 27,000 gallons of water per acre.”
“So when I had 0.5% organic matter, I was only able to percolate about 15,000 gallons of water.”
“Today, I’m in the Coastal Plain.”
“The Gulf of Mexico is 100 miles from my farm.”
“We get 5-6 inches of rain.”
“We’re able to absorb most of that water.”
@whiteoakpasture @Groundswellaguk
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Farmer Joel Salatin says Trump’s announcement on farmers processing their own beef is just political “clever speak.”
Why?
They already can process their own beef.
But they can’t sell it.
And Trump’s plan, Salatin said, will inevitably be “written with the eyes and ears of the Big Four” meat processing giants “right there at the table.”
This is why we’ve said for years that the core issue hurting American farmers is the centralization of market power in the hands of just a few massive corporations.
Those corporations haven’t only consolidated market power.
They’ve also amassed enormous political power, ensuring that no new rule coming out of Washington will ever defy their interests.
@JoelSalatin @RepThomasMassie
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“We need transformational change in rural America.”
Farmer Greg Gunthorp just revealed that farmers only get 14 cents of every dollar that consumers spend on food.
Why?
Corporate “consolidation and concentration.”
The vast majority of farm profits are scooped up by a handful of massive corporations.
“I think to fix the problems in rural America… there’s four means in which we make it so that local and regional processing and direct marketing is a possibility.”
“Subsidy reform.”
“Antitrust enforcement.”
“Truth in labeling enforcement.”
“Inspection reform.”
“We can sit around and complain, and trust me, I do my fair share of that.”
“The four packers own 86% of the beef supply.”
“Almost half of the hog slaughter in the United States is controlled by foreign companies.”
“We got to stay on these politicians and bureaucrats.”
“They got to quit making every single decision… to encourage the status quo of agriculture.”
“It’s time that they give independent agriculture some preferential treatment because I think that every consumer and every taxpayer expects that.”
@GGunthorp @SawyerWhisler @TorkWhisler
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“I just hope that somewhere along the line, at least the Secretary of Agriculture will WAKE UP and draw back her delays of these rules.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley is calling out USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins over the administration’s efforts to delay or rescind key Packers and Stockyards Act protections for farmers.
These rules were designed to increase transparency in poultry contracts and protect farmers from retaliation, discrimination, deceptive practices, and unfair payment systems.
Grassley highlighted what’s at stake for family farmers who make major investments in their operations and need meaningful protections against unfair practices by the massive corporations they contract with.
“They haven’t had their contracts honored fully the way they should be honored.”
Grassley, along with Sens. Cory Booker and Adam Schiff, hoped to add a bipartisan amendment to the Senate Farm Bill that would have made these producer protections permanent in law, but the amendment was not added.
That makes USDA’s decision on these rules even more consequential.
Farm Action has been clear: You cannot claim to fight monopoly power in agriculture while stripping away rules designed to protect farmers dealing with some of the most powerful corporations in the food system.
Farmers deserve fair contracts, transparent markets, and meaningful protection from corporate abuse.
@ChuckGrassley
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EXPOSED:
The USDA forced every pig farmer in America to pay for this coloring book promoting factory farming practices.
It’s meant to teach kids what a pig farm is supposed to look like.
But it shows pigs raised entirely indoors.
Mothers confined in a metal crate while nursing piglets.
It tells kids that keeping pigs away from the mud keeps them “happy and healthy.”
And this is not just private industry propaganda.
It’s funded by the Pork Checkoff, a government program that all pig farmers are required to pay into.
That means independent farmers who raise pigs outdoors with space to move and freely interact with their piglets were forced to pay for a booklet that denigrates their practices and promotes their competitors.
This booklet is just one example of the abuses uncovered in the mandatory checkoff programs.
Checkoff dollars should never pick winners and losers.
But it speaks to a much larger problem across our food system.
Between 1980 and 2022, the number of pig operations shrank by more than 70%.
Minnesota, where this booklet was handed out, has lost more than 55% of its pig farms in the last two decades.
Read our full blog on this corporate abuse and the deeper problem of monopolization it reveals below:🧵
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The USDA’s Pork Checkoff program forces independent farmers to pay for pro-factory farming propaganda.
Read below: farmaction.us/why-is-the-gov…
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One farmer’s fertilizer costs are $50,000 higher than they were pre-Iran war.
“That’s not including the diesel for his combines.”
“Planters.”
“Everything that they need to run their operation.”
Independent Senate candidate Dan Osborn is warning that the farm crisis has grown much worse this year.
But this crisis didn’t start this year.
Skyrocketing input costs and tariff disruptions followed decades of corporate consolidation and concentration in agriculture that have left family farms with less market power than ever.
And it’s left rural America more hollowed out than ever.
@osbornforne @openmarkets
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“I’m paying $7 a gallon here for diesel fuel.”
“My combine holds 140 gallons.”
“That’s right at $1,000 to fill up my combine.”
For farmer John Boyd Jr., those numbers illustrate a much bigger problem in American agriculture.
Farmers are paying more for the fuel, fertilizer, chemicals, equipment, and other inputs they need to produce our food, while concentrated markets leave them with little power over the prices they pay or receive.
When those costs keep climbing, the consequences eventually reach beyond the farm and ripple throughout the entire food system.
Boyd has been farming for decades and believes, “This is one of the worst economic times in history for America’s farmers.”
That should be a warning about the direction of American agriculture.
If producing food becomes increasingly expensive while farmers have less control over their markets, we risk losing more independent farms and concentrating even more of our food system in the hands of the biggest players.
@JWBoydNBFA
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Farm Action is fighting for independent farmers, ranchers, and consumers across the country.
We’re on the front lines of the fight against corporate monopolies driving farmers out of business.
Take 30 seconds to join our newsletter below: farmaction.us/sign-up/
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