When FLAG first opened, its work focused almost exclusively on credit issues. Over the years, the scope of FLAG's work broadened to include other issues of concern to family farmers. Here you will find descriptions of FLAG's work in each of those focus areas.

Credit
Farm Preservation Advocacy
Race Discrimination in Agriculture
Sustainable/Organic Agriculture
Disaster Assistance
Production Contracts
Factory Farms
Corporate Concentration
Biotechnology

Credit

FLAG was formed during the agricultural credit crisis of the mid-1980s. For the first few years of its existence, credit was FLAG's exclusive focus: FLAG wrote extensive educational materials, including Farmers' Guide to FmHA; FLAG attorneys traveled to dozens of states nationwide to train farmers, advocates, and attorneys regarding farmers' credit rights; FLAG won significant victories for over 80,000 family farmers in the Coleman litigation; and FLAG provided backup support to hundreds of farm advocates and attorneys nationwide.

In the 1990s FLAG continues to provide significant legal services in the area of credit. Farmers and ranchers are finding that credit is getting harder and harder to obtain while the need for it heightens. The Farm Service Agency (FSA) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is veering away from direct lending in favor of guaranteed lending, banks are pulling out of family farm agriculture, and farmers' cash flows are seriously restrained by depressed market prices.

With the recent USDA reorganization and the passage of the 1996 Farm Bill, everything farmers once knew about credit changed. USDA's reorganization eliminated the FSA county committees, and a new National Appeals Division was created to resolve credit (and other) disputes; the 1996 Farm Bill eliminated the leaseback/buyback program and net recovery value buyouts and prohibits loans to farmers who received certain types of debt forgiveness in the past. To make matters worse, the eligibility criteria for both government and commercial loans have been tightened, ensuring that fewer farmers will be eligible for credit.

FLAG will continue its work with its organizational clients to make affordable credit more available through reasonable procedures and on reasonable terms to family farmers.

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Farm Preservation Advocacy

Unfortunately, to earn a living, American family farmers must have quite a bit of knowledge about their legal rights and obligations in a complex scheme of federal farm programs. Much farm income hinges on federal credit and on farm program and disaster payments. To obtain this federal assistance, farmers must demonstrate that they comply with all program rules. The rules fill thousands of pages of regulation books and are supplemented by thousands of additional pages of policy statements.

The average farmer cannot navigate through that maze on his or her own. Family farmers have substantial unmet legal and advocacy needs because it is difficult to find that kind of support in rural areas.

To respond to these unmet legal needs, different organizations—including state departments of agriculture, church groups, and independent nonprofits—have established farm advocate programs in many farming states. These programs provide trained advocates or negotiators to represent farmers and ranchers in informal negotiations with creditors and federal agencies, in mediation sessions, and in administrative appeals. These programs also provide financial analysis and planning assistance. The negotiators and advocates in these programs identify recurring problems and areas where governmental policy changes are needed to benefit farmers and ranchers in general. When these advocacy programs can get intensive legal support, it substantially increases their effectiveness in meeting farm and ranch families' legal needs.

African-American and Native American farmers and ranchers have especially compelling needs for business and financial planning education and assistance, as well as legal education and advocacy services because historically they have experienced unique barriers to accessing government resources. Native American farmers' difficulties are multiplied because they often must deal with the practical and legal complexities of farming trust lands. Native American farmers and ranchers must deal not only with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), but also with tribal governments and with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA).

In December 1995, FLAG received a generous three-year grant from the Northwest Area Foundation to implement a new initiative called the Farm Preservation Advocacy Network. This project is a collaborative effort designed to help farmers and ranchers in the eight states of the Northwest (Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, Montana, Washington, and Idaho) retain their land and businesses and maximize their income. The project is a partnership between FLAG and four advocate groups: the Intertribal Agriculture Council; the North Dakota Agricultural Mediation Service; the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's Farm Advocate Program; and the South Dakota Department of Agriculture's Financial Counselors. The advocate groups provide farmers and ranchers with individualized assistance, and FLAG provides technical assistance to the advocates.

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Race Discrimination in Agriculture

Minority farmers and ranchers in America are losing their land at an alarming rate. The demise of minority farmers stems at least in part from discrimination at the Farm Service Agency (FSA) (formerly FmHA), which is supposed to be the "lender of last resort." FSA is required to help minority farmers by providing them with outreach and targeted funds. Further, USDA has an obligation to properly handle farmers' discrimination complaints. On paper, the system looks good—but it's not working.

A stream of studies over the past 30yearshas highlighted FSA's failure to enforce civil rights laws and its failure to "clean house" regarding discriminatory behavior within the agency. After hearing extensive testimony—including hearing a top-level agency official admit that "[FmHA] is frequently in noncompliance with civil rights requirements at the local level"—the U.S. House Government Operations Committee concluded that, "FmHA has been a catalyst in the decline of minority farming."

FLAG continues to work on behalf of several organizations of minority farmers to respond to USDA's failure to enforce civil rights laws. FLAG has litigated against USDA to obtain documents about its civil rights records; has analyzed the problems in USDA's current civil rights enforcement system and worked to design a better system; has provided testimony to the United States Congress; and, on an ongoing basis, provides legal education and case analysis support to its client organizations' advocates and farmer-members.

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Sustainable Agriculture

Many farmers share the growing public concern about the future of our food system. Some are deliberately searching for ways to farm that are not only profitable but durable. They aspire to a more "sustainable agriculture."

Sustainable agriculture involves alternative farming practices—such as crop rotation and diversification of cropping systems—which strive to use renewable resources that can be generated on the farm instead of nonrenewable, purchased resources. It emphasizes farming in ways that will protect the environment, conserve resources, and enhance the health and safety of farm workers and consumers, while producing needed food and fiber supplies at a profit for farmers.

While many farmers are interested in adopting sustainable farming practices, changing from conventional to sustainable food production and distribution systems is a difficult and expensive process. It requires investment capital, community leadership, legal and technical expertise, and a willingness to take the risks linked to changing production and marketing methods.

FLAG provides legal support to certain grassroots sustainable agriculture organizations. Those organizations are trying to create a partnership between farmers, consumers, environmentalists, business constituencies, and government to forge a new vision of agriculture production that is based on principles of land stewardship, sound resource management, and the revitalization of rural economies.

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Disaster Assistance

Many farms and ranches have been ravaged by disasters in the last six months. Several federal programs are available to help farmers recoup some of what they lost. They include:

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Individual and Family Grants
FEMA Temporary Housing Assistance
FEMA Disaster Unemployment Assistance
Federal Crop Insurance
Noninsured Crop Assistance Program (Farm Service Agency)
Emergency Conservation Program (Farm Service Agency)
Livestock Feed Assistance
Farm Service Agency (FSA) Emergency Loans
Small Business Administration (SBA) Disaster Loan Programs
Bankruptcy

FLAG publishes a book entitled Farmers' Guide to Disaster Assistance that explains all of these programs in user-friendly language. The book contains detailed footnotes to the laws discussed in the text—this makes it easier for farmers to take the book to their advocates and lawyers to get targeted, cost-effective help.

FLAG also provides training on disaster assistance issues to farmers, advocates, and lawyers in disaster-afflicted areas around the country. Finally, FLAG provides technical support to groups of farmers who are trying to change federal disaster assistance policy to make it more helpful to farmers.

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Production Contracts

Contract poultry farmers serving poultry companies are in a difficult position. Many contract poultry growers are indentured to these companies through short-term contracts, long-term debts, and sub-minimum wages. Poultry growers must be willing to invest tens of thousands of dollars in state-of-the-art automated chicken houses and equipment, yet they have no job securityÅcontracts generally last only seven weeks. Growers report that the companies engage in widespread, unfair, and deceptive practices, which often result in growers losing their farms within a relatively short period of time. Many of the unfair practices that are ruining growers are illegal.

Many of the nation's poultry growers are working together through the National Contract Poultry Growers' Association (NCPGA) and its corporate members. NCPGA is trying to make the poultry industry one in which growers (and others) can work safely, fairly, honorably, and profitably. FLAG provides legal technical assistance to NCPGA.

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Factory Hog Farms

Thousands of family farm hog producers are going out of business every year as a result of major restructuring in the hog industry. The new industrialized model of production requires that massive numbers of animals be produced in confinement facilities. The storage and handling of the huge amount of manure and waste generated by these factory farms may pollute the air, surface water, and groundwater near the facilities, threatening neighbors' health and diminishing the enjoyment and value of their property. Hog packers' willingness to enter into exclusive deals with these industrialized production facilities decreases family farmers' ability to access competitive markets and reduces the prices they receive for their hogs. In a desperate attempt to stay in business, many family farmers succumb to the pressure of industrialization: they take unwieldy financial risks to make capital investments in new confinement barns, and they enter into production contracts through which the companies maintain control over the management, inputs, and income from their hog operations.

FLAG assists family farmers and farm organizations that are concerned about the industrialization of the hog industry by providing them with legal counsel on environmental laws, anti-corporate farm laws, county and township zoning issues, production contracts, and the federal Packers and Stockyards Act.

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Corporate Concentration

Independent cattle producers are battling the beef packers' ability to control and manipulate cattle prices. The top three beef packers slaughter 80 percent of all fed cattle in the United States. With this concentration of market power in the beef packing industry comes the ability of packers to control and manipulate prices paid for cattle. The federal Packers and Stockyards Act is designed to protect the interest of cattle producers. It prohibits packers from using any unfair, deceptive, or discriminatory practices in purchasing livestock and prohibits packers from taking any actions that result in the control or manipulation of prices.

FLAG works with farm organizations that are fighting for aggressive enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act by the USDA.

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Biotechnology

The issues farmers face with the use of biotechnology, including genetically modified organism (GMOs) are complex and constantly changing. The commercial production ofGMOs has created a legal minefield for American farmers and requires that farmers be particularly sure footed.FLAG's work in biotechnolgy focuses on providing farmers and farm organizations information on GMO liability, contracts and legislation. FLAGhasalso begun addressingissues related to organics and GMOs.

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