One company sells 80% of all canned pumpkin, one cooperative sells 70% of all cranberry sauce, and two companies sell 60% of all carrots. That’s not great for fair prices or resiliency.
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The Capper-Volstead Act just turned 100 years old. What the future of farming could learn from this lesser-known law that established the legal foundations for agricultural cooperatives.
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On January 4, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Idaho’s “ag-gag” law, finding it an unconstitutional violation of free speech. The decision marks the first time a federal appeals court has ruled against an ag-gag law. Opponents of the law, which had been in effect since 2014, hope that the ruling will provide a precedent for overturning ag-gag laws in several other states.
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In Wisconsin, some of the state’s biggest agricultural cooperatives want to weaken farmers’ control over their own cooperatives. Farmers in the state argue that the changes–in the form of amendments to the state agricultural laws–are simply meant to enhance the power of larger-scale cooperatives, and stray from the true intent and purpose of a farmer cooperative.
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