What are we fighting for?
Just a handful of giant companies control huge sectors of the farm economy. Fewer and fewer agricultural commodities are bought and sold in an open and competitive marketplace. It has become almost impossible for farmers and ranchers to recover the true market value of the goods they produce.
We will fight against agriculture monopolies whenever we can, and we intend to let people know about the elected officials who perpetuate these monopolies so they can take action.
Most major food retailers don’t want consumers to know where the food they buy comes from. While many consumers prefer to buy American beef—including Montana beef—it took years of fighting to enact country-of-origin labeling in Montana. The League believes country-of-origin labeling can help American food producers bring their products to consumers who want them.
We’ll fight for country-of-origin labeling of more agricultural products. We’ll fight for other policy measures that will help raise farm and ranch income, and we’ll expose the politicians who have delayed country-of-origin labeling.
Politicians have lent little more than lip service to energy policies that could improve farm and ranch income. The League believes in encouraging a biodiesel industry to develop in Montana, and in encouraging wind power, solar power, and energy efficiencies that can help farm and ranch families to stay on the land.
We’ll fight for an energy policy that puts Montana first and moves us toward a more affordable, stable, clean, and renewable energy supply.
Family farms and ranches often face disruptive and destructive impacts from nearby fossil fuel extraction. These impacts are especially frustrating for landowners who don't have their own mineral rights (and because of antiquated homesteading laws, never got the chance to get them). We have limited leverage when someone else owns mineral rights beneath our land. Landowners facing mineral extraction on or near their property face impacts like:
- Interruption of farm and ranch operations;
- Damage to water resources;
- Damage to land;
- Condemnation of land for energy facilities (this may include roads, pipelines, and transmission lines, as well as the extractive sites themselves); and
- Disruption of established water rights.
- The League will fight to make sure that the costs of dirty fossil fuel development aren’t unfairly piled onto the backs of farmers, ranchers, and rural communities that are nearby or downstream. And, we will not tolerate elected officials who turn their backs on Montana’s farm and ranch families.
