Cases

August 24, 2021 In Cases

­­Debt Relief for Farmers of Color

For decades, Black, Indigenous and farmers of color have experienced racial discrimination from the United States Department of Agriculture. Leaders and members of our client organizations, the National Black Farmers Association and Association of American Indian Farmers, have personally endured discrimination such as: bigotry from…

July 8, 2020 In Cases

Food Chain Workers Alliance v. Tyson Foods Title VI Complaint

A nationwide coalition of organizations that advocate for meat processing workers and allied groups filed an administrative civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Agriculture alleging that in addition to being disastrous for the wellbeing of workers and for public health, two major meat…

November 20, 2019 In Cases

Iowa Ag-Gag II (ALDF v. Reynolds)

Iowa’s second effort to prevent journalists or activists from entering livestock facilities under false pretenses to report on animal abuse was passed and signed into law just two months after U.S. District Judge James Gritzner ruled that Iowa’s law passed in 2012 violated the First…

November 19, 2019 In Cases

Iowa Ag-Gag I (ALDF, et al. v. Reynolds, et al.)

Plaintiffs challenged an Iowa law that criminalized undercover investigations at factory farms and slaughterhouses. Specifically, this statute (the Ag-Gag law) made it a crime to gain access to, or employment at, such a facility under false pretenses—that is, through speech. The district court struck down…

May 30, 2019 In Cases

Indiana Right to Farm

Like many other states, Indiana has a “Right-to-Farm” statute, meant to codify the coming to the nuisance doctrine—so city-dwellers cannot move to rural lands and demand farms change their operations. Corporate agribusiness has, however, been pushing efforts to expand the scope of these laws to…

May 29, 2019 In Cases

Idaho Ag-Gag

In recent years, more and more state legislatures have – at the urging of lobbyists representing factory farm operations and industrial food producers – taken up “Ag Gag” laws that shroud mega-farms in secrecy and make holding them accountable for pollution, unsafe working conditions and…