WASHINGTON, DC, January 18, 2007 - On January 18, the National Family Farm Coalition joined more than 200 organizations representing farmer, rancher, food, consumer, labor, religious, environmental, and wildlife interests in a letter delivered to the Chairs and members of the congressional House and Senate Agriculture and Judiciary Committees urging them to restore fair, open, and competitive markets for our nation's farmers and ranchers.

The letter, coordinated by the Competition and Concentration Committee of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, represents the concerns of the millions of members of the signatory organizations that the concentration and power exerted by a few mega-corporations over our farming and food system has a dramatic, negative impact not only on farmers and ranchers, but also on our rural communities, the environment, food quality, food safety, and consumer prices. It undermines sustainable production practices and state and local laws that support family-scale, sustainable farm and ranch operations.

"If we are to make sustainable family farms the norm and not the exception in this country, we need public policy to make sure we reverse the advance of industrial food production, processing, and marketing. There is no way that big corporations should be raising livestock or controlling their production through contracts. We need diversified family farms producing livestock and any livestock enterprise otherwise needs to pay the full cost of all feed that they buy, which can only happen through a farm bill that provides real price supports and supply management," stated George Naylor, president of the National Family Farm Coalition.

The signatories strongly urge the Senators and Representatives to champion a new strong, comprehensive Competition Title in the 2007 Farm Bill. The Farm Bill Competition Title should include specific measures to limit packer and processor control and manipulation of livestock markets to the detriment of farmers and ranchers. The groups also seek increased fairness in agricultural contracts and markets with restrictions on unfair, boilerplate clauses in contracts written by mega-processors and packers. These contracts impose unfair terms on farmers and ranchers through misleading language and requirements for mandatory arbitration to settle contract disputes. The Farm Bill should level the playing field for farmers and ranchers, who do not have sufficient bargaining power to negotiate with large corporations for fair contract terms.

A Competition Title should also assure adequate market information and transparency for consumers and agricultural producers. Country of origin labeling should be required to give consumers the choice of supporting our nation's farmers and ranchers. The Farm Bill should also redress any deficiencies in our current mandatory livestock price reporting law to ensure that farmers and ranchers have timely access to the same information about markets and prices that is available to the packers and processors that buy their products.

We need these agricultural market reforms for rural revitalization and meaningful consumer choice for a wide array of healthy, affordable safe food. Naylor stated, "We all have an opportunity and responsibility to get involved in passing a new farm bill that acts as a consumer-farmer economic bill of rights."

A copy of this sign-on letter and background information on the 2007 Farm Bill's Competition and Concentration issues can be found at: http://sustainableagriculture.net/compconc2007.php.