Click to toggle navigation menu.

SiX Takeaways: The EATS Act and Abusive Preemption in Agriculture

Here are resources, further information and six takeaways from the SiX webinar: The EATS Act and Abusive Preemption in Agriculture on Thursday April 4th, 2024:

If you were unable to attend the webinar alive, you can watch the recording here. Password: NoEATS6!

  1. The history of the US is a history of struggle between corporate power and people. We often think of consolidation and the extraordinary power of today’s corporations as being inevitable. But in fact, it was decisions by policymakers and corporate leaders that got us here. Corporations, including agribusiness, have always lobbied for policies that benefit them. Laws to instead rein in corporate power have passed only as a result of strong people-powered action.

  2. Public support for better farm practices is extremely high. In 2018, ballot initiative Proposition 12 passed in California with overwhelming popular support, including from farmers and rural communities. Prop. 12 implemented a ban on producing and selling products in the state involving the extreme confinement of mother pigs, egg-laying chickens, and veal calves. When agribusiness industry lawsuits against the new law failed, the industry turned to its friends in Congress; the proposed EATS Act (Ending Agriculture Trade Suppression Act, S.2019/H.R.4417) is the result.

  3. The EATS Act is a classic example of preemption of state and local authority. If passed, the act would have a direct impact on the ability of state and local lawmakers to pass critical policy related to food, agriculture, rural, and environmental issues. A study by Harvard estimates that it would impact over a thousand existing local and state laws.

  4. States like North Carolina and Iowa, where the agribusiness industry is especially strong, preview the future other states could face should the EATS Act become law. For decades, residents of these states have had few legal protections against the expansion of the confinement hog industry in their literal backyards. They face extremely high rates of water and air pollution, serious physical and mental health problems, and much more. In North Carolina, industrial animal barns have been concentrated in two low-lying coastal counties whose populations are primarily African-American, Hispanic, and Indigenous. These trends would no doubt spread if states were no longer able to pass appropriate protections for their residents.

  5. State and local policymakers can work in partnership with communities to build policy solutions that work for people instead of for giant corporations. These can include increasing access to farmland and credit for beginning farmers; right to repair laws allowing people to fix their own equipment; and conservation funding. This can also look like a recent example from Oregon, where a rural community opposing the proposed construction of several huge chicken operations next to a stream and rural elementary school allied with advocates and state lawmakers to pass a law reforming the way the state regulated industrial livestock operations. You can learn more about state policies that can help build a thriving and sustainable future for all of us in the SiX Blueprint for Rural Policy Action in the States.

  6. Federal laws should complement state laws, not prevent them from being passed. Join one of our two sign-on letters for elected officials to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry urging them to oppose the EATS Act and similar language in the 2024 Farm Bill. Signatures will be accepted until Monday April 15th.

Policymakers are encouraged to share these letters with their colleagues! 

To stay in touch with the SiX Ag and Food Systems team and get access to exclusive briefings like this and more, I encourage you to join the Cohort for Rural Opportunity and Prosperity (CROP), the only cross-state cohort of state legislators in the country dedicated to working on progressive agriculture, rural, environmental and food policy. Learn more and sign up for the CROP here: https://ag.stateinnovation.org/crop/

As always, if you need assistance or would like to work on policies that challenge corporate power, consolidation, and abusive pre-emption, please reach out to [email protected].