As Family Farm Action Alliance (FFAA) comes to life with this first communication, we want to start by thanking the staff of our allied organization, Family Farm Action: Chelsea Davis, Director of Communications and Jake Davis, National Policy Director. Without their assistance and guidance this day would not have been possible.
FFAA is a national research, policy development, market innovator, and advocacy organization consisting of a network of farmers, ranchers, hard-working people, and the organizations that represent them.
It is born out of a two-year collaboration between Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) and Family Farm Action. These two organizations have realized many successes over the last two years and in looking to the future, it became clear that an additional voice was needed within their collaboration. Family Farm Action has become the strong political voice for family farmers and their rural communities and will continue that on behalf of the collaboration. While remaining strongly in support of OCM’s mission and campaigns, this new voice will have a broader mission; the advancement of the American ideal that all people have a right to share in the prosperity, they help build through a fair, just, and inclusive economy.
This ideal has never been realized, but generations have struggled to advance the hope that is America; a country where anyone and everyone has the opportunity to share in the prosperity they help Build.
Today our economy is only working for a handful of individuals and monopoly corporations and not for the people. Farmers and ranchers are being strangled by monopoly power that controls their markets, workers across America are having to work at two, and sometimes three jobs just to pay the rent. Small and regional businesses are being chased out of town by monopoly corporations who extract wealth from our communities.
Over the last few years, we believe many in our country are resigning themselves to the fact that big is just the natural flow of our economy and the ideal of an opportunity for a shared prosperity is just that an ideal that is unachievable. This resignation is allowing a foundational value of our society to slip into our past and therefore is not being promoted for our future.
FFAA takes its first breath out of an understanding all people share a common threat and a common enemy: monopoly corporate power. Unless we seek understanding and common purpose among all communities, we shall all be destined to economic servitude to the corporate monopolies.
We look forward to joining you in building an economy that works for all of us and move our ideal forward as generations before us.
Joe Maxwell