Nebraska — Latest Stories

Food & Power Newsletter: The Battle for Nebraska: Communities Take On Industrial Chicken and Pork

“We need a moratorium here in Iowa. We’ve got too many factory farms.” That’s Adam Mason, state policy director with Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. He’s not alone in his desire for dramatic action to be taken against the proliferation of factory farming in his state. Communities across the country are standing up against corporate, industrial farming in their towns and cities. This growing anger is in part a response to weak state and federal protection of open and competitive livestock markets.

Nebraska's Livestock Market Faces Death by Big Meat Lobbying

Few images are more emblematic of the American heartland than that of farmers taking their livestock to market. But if Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts signs a bill passed last month by his state’s legislature, one of the last of the country’s traditional open livestock markets may soon close forever. The bill would remove one of the few safeguards that allow farmers to sell their livestock in a transparent and competitive way.

The Last State Standing Against Corporate Farming Weighs A Change

State Senator Ken Schilz introduced LB 176 in the Nebraska state legislature in January to overturn a 15-year-old law – the Competitive Livestock Markets Act – that bans corporations from owning livestock except in the days immediately before slaughter. Known colloquially as the “packer ban,” the law was intended to force corporations to buy their animals from independent producers, thereby supporting a competitive livestock market. What would the impact of this law be on hog farmers?