🚨 CALL TO ACTION: The Senate Agriculture Committee marks up the Farm Bill this Thursday. Scroll to the bottom of this article for key target phone numbers and a quick, polite call script urging Senators to support Senator Booker’s amendments and vote NO on advancing this bill out of committee.
Every budget is a moral document. Every Farm Bill is a moral document. Every five years Congress decides what it will encourage, what it will reward, what it will subsidize, and, ultimately, what kind of food system—and what kind of nation—it wishes to cultivate.
The Farm Bill proposal revealed ahead of Thursday’s committee markup is a disaster—ramping up toxic pesticides and doubling down on corporate giveaways. We must be explicit about what needs to be removed from this legislation and what must be built in its place. We are what we eat.
The current Farm Bill is sets up policies to destroy the foundations of our country’s national security, economic vitality, our health and our safety.
What Must Be Removed:
If lawmakers want to protect public health and the environment, they must strip out the destructive measures currently baked into the Farm Bill:
Slashing Conservation & Organic Funding: The proposal fails to adequately invest in organic and regenerative farming, local food, and oversubscribed conservation programs that help farmers adopt practices that lessen reliance on toxic chemicals.
Deregulatory Pesticide Provisions: Sections 10201, 10203, 10207, and 10209 carve out synthetic chemicals from human health safety reviews, force USDA into EPA scientific reviews, delay glyphosate human health reviews until 2031, and force EPA to prioritize industry costs over human health.
Corporate Giveaways: By prioritizing mega-commodity crops, federal dollars continue subsidizing feed for industrial CAFOs and raw materials for ultra-processed food rather than nourishing human health.
Expanding E15 Ethanol Mandates: A new provision to increase demand for pesticide-intensive corn through E15 mandates doubles down on monocultures, driving massive pesticide and synthetic fertilizer runoff into our waterways.
Blocking Regenerative Pilots & Soil Testing: Provisions that block federal agencies from requiring soil testing or whole-farm planning in conservation programs, threatening critical pilot efforts to verify real ecological progress.
Censoring Dietary Guidelines: Broad prohibitions in the draft preventing the Dietary Guidelines for Americans from evaluating how processing levels and agricultural production practices impact human health, heavy metal contamination, and food safety.
Gutting Food Access: The bill does nothing to reverse devastating SNAP cuts, leaving millions struggling while corporate agribusiness reaps record subsidies.
What Must Be Funded
Agricultural policy which promotes and sustains life requires redirecting public resources toward systems that regenerate life. We are demanding that Congress redirect federal funding toward these vital pillars:
Direct Resources to True Conservation: Restore and expand full funding for federal conservation programs, ensuring every farmer who wants to implement cover crops, soil-building practices, and watershed protections receives the support to do so.
Invest in Regenerative Organic Systems: Transition significant federal research, crop insurance incentives, and block grants toward regenerative organic farming. Protect whole-farm planning and soil testing metrics so farmers can prove ecological progress.
Prioritize Pasture-Raised Animal Agriculture: Shift livestock subsidies away from industrial feedlots and toward pasture-based, rotational grazing systems that restore soil microbiomes, sequester carbon, and produce nutrient-dense food.
Build Local and Regional Food Networks: Invest in local food hubs, farm-to-school programs, and regional processing infrastructure that keep dollars in rural communities and connect family farms directly to neighboring tables.
Reverse SCOTUS Pesticide Immunity & Restore Legal Accountability: Support Senator Cory Booker’s critical amendment to amend FIFRA and overturn the Supreme Court’s Monsanto v. Durnell decision—restoring state-law failure-to-warn claims so farmworkers, farmers, and everyday citizens can hold chemical giants accountable in court when toxic exposure causes cancer and disease.
Protect Nutrition Transparency: Support Booker’s amendment to allow Dietary Guidelines to evaluate ultra-processed foods and farming practices that impact nutrient density and food safety.
The Farm Bill is often described as an agriculture bill. It isn’t. It is a bill about the conditions of American life. The deficit thinking which advances debt, death, and decline as the foundation of prosperity and strength; the need to command and control, to slash, burn, and poison that which we don’t like—be it cancer, people, or weeds; the need to subjugate and dominate that which is most alive and life-giving, our forests, our waters, and our lands, is all the advancement of warfare in one form or another.
Few pieces of legislation reach so deeply into the fabric of American life as does the Farm Bill. Life is stewarded by what and how we choose to produce food. The health of our lands—our country, its water, soil, and air—our bodies, our economy, our nation is all foundationally determined by the way we grow our food and nourish ourselves. In a world in pain, nourishment is key. In a world where life at every level is under threat, nurture is essential.
For decades, federal policy has has tilted the playing field against many independent family farmers, diversified producers, and regenerative farming systems. The government has favored a model of highly consolidated, chemical-intensive agriculture which has served to damage human health and the ecological cycles which support it.
This is the precise moment when it is our opportunity to produce policies which truly support our lives, our health and the political and economic life of our nation.
Mobilize Today: Call These Key Senators Before Thursday
Below are Senate leaders we should focus upon: You can also view the full Senate Agriculture Committee membership list to see if your Senator serves on the panel. The Senate Agriculture Committee meets this Thursday.
Senator Cory Booker will be introducing crucial amendments on the floor to fix these disastrous provisions, safeguard public health, and hold the pesticide industry accountable.
We need to call Senate offices immediately. Let’s focus on these key committee leaders and decision-makers:
Senator John Boozman (R-AR) — Committee Chairman: (202) 224-4843
Holds the gavel and drafts the core bill text; needs to hear firm, direct opposition to chemical liability shields.
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) — Ranking Member: (202) 224-3244
Top Democrat on the committee; must hear from constituents to hold a unified line behind Booker’s public health amendments.
Senator John Thune (R-SD) — Senate Majority Leader: (202) 224-2321
Top Senate Republican; holds immense leverage over floor scheduling and conservative farm-state votes.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) — Senate Democratic Whip: (202) 224-2152
Responsible for whipping Democratic votes to ensure no caucus members cross over on toxic deregulatory riders.
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) — Senior Ag Member: (202) 224-3744
A frequent, outspoken critic of corporate ag monopolies; prime target for protecting independent family farm legal rights.
Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) — Rural Development Subcommittee Chair:
(202) 224-3254
Represents major agricultural interests with key oversight over rural economic stability and soil health.
Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) — Senior Ag Member: (202) 224-4835
Key swing vote for independent livestock producers and Midwestern row-crop conservation.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) —
Ag Appropriations Powerhouse & National Voice: (202) 224-4451
Controls USDA/FDA funding budgets on Ag Appropriations and holds immense political influence; vital for mobilizing colleagues behind Booker’s health and food safety amendments.
Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) — Senior Ag Member: (202) 224-4254
Pivotal vote on defending SNAP access, regional food networks, and standing up to corporate agribusiness.
Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) — Senior Ag Member: (202) 224-4822
Represents a major agricultural state with diverse specialty crops and regional food hub priorities.
Sample Call Script
“Hello, my name is [Your Name], and I’m calling to ask Senator [Last Name] to support Senator Booker’s amendments and vote NO on advancing this Farm Bill out of committee.
This draft needs far too much work and is way too important to rush through. As written, it deregulates toxic chemicals, slashes conservation, blocks soil-testing metrics, and leaves chemical cartels shielded by Supreme Court precedents.
Please stand up for public health, clean water, and independent family farmers by supporting Senator Booker’s amendments—including reversing the SCOTUS liability shield—and voting NO on advancing this bill until it truly serves the public good. Thank you for your time.”
Life is quite literally on the line—the health of our children, the vitality of our soil, the purity of our water, and the economic survival of our family farmers. The committee meets this Thursday.
Legislative power resides in the Senate, but moral authority and democratic accountability remain with us. Please call your Senator and a Senator from the list immediately.
Good policy must reward the creation of living value, not simply the extraction of dead commodities. Healthy soil creates value. Clean water creates value. Pollinators create value. Healthy communities create value. Independent farmers are the backbone of our nation’s economy.
If we are committed to protecting human dignity, safeguarding our children, and preserving our country, then we must demand a truly pro-Life agriculture. Life with a capital L.
A pro-life agricultural policy honors the sacred duty of stewardship—nourishing healthy soils, protecting living ecosystems, supporting family farmers, and creating the conditions in which Life at every level can survive and flourish.