Agriculture Fairness Alliance

🌿 Are You Ready to Make a Systemic Impact? 🌿

If you've been searching for a way to advance veganism beyond individual choices, this is your moment. Support us as we push for transformative policies with our new Carbon Capture Legislation. Your donations empower us to fight for a fair future proofed food system at the highest levels.

Join our mission today. Together, we can turn systemic change into a reality.

🔗 Donate now [Link in bio]

This Earth Day, AFA launches new legislation. CARB0N "Carbon Assessment & Reduction Back to 0 Net". Next week, we kick off our meetings. We have a go-to-market plan that includes over 20 offices.

Want to know how you can support our work?

1. Join/Donate - this helps us lobby to change our food system at the Federal Level.
2. Share in your stories or direct comments on vegan posts - this helps others who are looking for a systemic approach to pushing towards a Vegan world by changing the food system and how our taxes are used.
3. Encourage Vegan Events, Vegan Podcasts and Speaking Panels that need subject matter experts on the food system to invite us.

Chip in here: www.afa.farm. IG: Link in Bio.

🌱 A Heartfelt Thank You 🌱

To our dedicated members and generous donors, your support has been the backbone of our mission. You've amplified our voice, enabling us to lead the systemic vegan movement and drive meaningful change. Because of the Farm Bill delays and extending another year, your continued support is crucial as we keep up the momentum for the rest of the year.

👥 Join Us in Making a Difference 👤

If you're not yet a part of our community, consider joining us today. For our current members and donors, help spread the word about who we are and what we stand for.

We're a vegan advocacy group actively engaging with Congress to advocate for fairness and our vegan ideals into the food system. While last year our efforts were focused on the Farm Bill, the ongoing delays have led us to initiate bold new Carbon Capture Legislation.

📢 Make Your Voice Heard 📢

This is your chance to be part of history. Join us.

🌍 Ready to Challenge the Status Quo? 🌱

Our new legislation isn't just progressive—it's essential, aligning food systems with vegan values and urgent environmental needs. Frustrated by endless delays in the Farm Bill, we're taking bold steps with a parallel legislative push to rectify the food system's flaws.

🔥 Join the Movement 🔥
Our efforts rely on the strength of our community. Your membership fuels our two dedicated DC lobbyists and amplifies our collective voice not only where it matters most, but also in a place that vegan voices aren't the majority.

Let's go beyond passive consumerism and go a step further, by engaging in direct, systemic change. Become a member and help us lead the charge for a vegan future.

🔗 Act Now! [Link in bio] or www.afa.farm

Share.

🌟 We're Making History—And You're Invited! 🌿

Exciting news! We're about to launch a critical piece of legislation that aims to revolutionize our approach to carbon emissions and set us on a path to a sustainable, animal-saving future. The big question: Should we call it 'Carbon Assessment & Reduction Back to Net Zero' or 'Back to Zero Net'?

The acronym would either be CARB'N 0 or CARB0N (zero in place of the letter "o").

📊 Have Your Say!
Your voice matters—vote on the name that will headline our latest legislation! Visit the link in our bio to make your choice known.

💚 Support the Cause
Every donation fuels our fight for a greener tomorrow and the protection of our animal friends. Join us in this journey to enact change and donate today!

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Here's what this legislation means for us and the planet:

🌾 Sustainable Farming: Emphasizing practices that not only nourish us but also our earth, paving the way for a future where agriculture and nature thrive together.

💨 Carbon Capture: Innovative strategies to harness the power of the land, turning our farms into carbon sinks that fight climate change at its core.

🌳 Biodiversity Protection: A commitment to the richness of life, ensuring our agricultural practices enhance, not deplete, the natural world.

🥦 Boost for Plant-Based Industry: Recognizing the pivotal role of plant-based foods in reducing our carbon footprint, this act promises support for research, development, and consumer education, driving the shift towards farming plant based foods & sequentially consumption.

🐄 Transition Support for "Livestock" Farmers: Offers support to those who need to move towards more sustainable, plant-based agricultural models.

🌏

🌱 The Fight for a Fair Farm Bill Continues...

Over a year into our Farm Bill Fight, the journey's been longer and tougher than we anticipated. With Congress's ever-shifting timelines, our team at AFA has been relentless, ensuring the Vegan voice is heard loud and clear in DC. But the path remains uphill.

We Need You Now More Than Ever. 🤝

In a time where inflation hits hard, our mission sequentially faces financial challenges, threatening the intensity of our advocacy. Without a boost in membership and support, we risk cutting down our lobbying efforts - a setback we can't afford.

📢 If you believe in a future where Vegans have a seat at the table, where our food system reflects our values and needs, it's time to stand with us. Every member, every donation, keeps our fight alive and our lobbyists in lockstep with Congress.

👉 Join us or donate today at www.afa.farm. Let's make sure our Vegan Language is not just heard but makes a mark.

Your support can change the course of this fight. 💪

"

According to the Dairyland Initiative, school of veterinary medicine, University Wisconsin-Madison, Lactating Dairy Cows produce 150lbs of Manure per day each. This is over 2.3x the amount of non-lactating beef cows.

If you break this down, 1 cow produces 6-7 gallons of milk each day. So for every 6 gallons of milk=150lbs of manure.

That means that a 1 gallon milk jug equates to 25lbs of manure. And that 1 serving of milk equates to 1.56lbs of manure each 8oz glass.

AFA is in DC dedicated to reshaping our food system, engaging with Congress to address the ingrained unfairness and end the bias that penalizes plant-based choices. The root of the problem? Our current food system, which creates a ripple effect of overhead cost that shows up where there is a surcharge or upcharge on plant-based milks while subsidizing dairy, discouraging sustainable choices. True change can be slowed down without systemic reform – creating a level playing field where informed, accountable choices become the norm, not the exception is imperative.

This is why your voice matters. Join us, so that we can continue our efforts to advocate for fairness and support the shift towards a vegan & more equitable food system. Together, we can remove the barriers to eating plant based, making every choice count towards less animals being hurt & an overall healthier planet.

Let's demand these changes in our food system. Your support can help pave the way for the necessary systemic changes, guiding more individuals towards impactful, accountable decisions.

-->www.afa.farm



Source:
https://thedairylandinitiative.vetmed.wisc.edu/home/housing-module/adult-cow-housing/manure-management/ #:~:text=Lactating%20cows%20produce%20around%20150,state%20and%20federal%20government%20regulations.

🌱✨ Transitioning to a Plant-Based Future: Beyond Rice and Beans ✨🌱⠀
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While telling non-vegans to switch to rice and beans is a start, it's not the full solution. In 2023, inflation took a huge toll on Americans and seems to have affected alternative meat sales, which saw a 7.8% decline YoY.⠀
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The cost barrier is real. According to the Good Food Institute, 20% of people are deterred from plant-based meats by their price, and 25% of occasional consumers find cost a hurdle, with most willing to pay only 5-10% more than the cost of animal meat.

🔍 The market is responding, and so should we. Relying solely on consumer choice isn't enough. We need systemic change.

🚀 The Solution? Legislative action. It's not about choosing rice and beans; it's about making plant-based options affordable through smart subsidies. Let's advocate for policies that lower plant-based food costs and make sustainable eating a no-brainer.
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🌍 From animal liberation to environmental sustainability and personal health, the reasons for this shift are clear.

www.agriculturefairnessalliance.org

🔄 Join us in pushing for a future where plant-based foods are the norm, not the exception. "

🚨 Bird Flu Alert: 22M Birds Lost in 4 Months 🚨⠀
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Why are we using our taxes to force chicken farmers into a losing battle against bird flu? It's not just the birds at risk and dealing with a terrible death (Yes, their life is terrible already and filled with even more heartbreaking issues); it's anyone who touches, cooks, or eats chicken. Transparency? Almost none. Safety? Questionable.⠀
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🥦 If broccoli were the culprit, it'd be off shelves in a heartbeat. Why not chicken? It's time for a shift. For safety, for ethics, for our future.

🌿 Let's rethink and demand better. For our health, our economy, and our planet. Join Us or donate to support our lobbying efforts. Our lobbying work is vital for veganism and saving animals, but also for the health and safety of our fellow humans. "

These delays make it challenging to have longevity with advancements you make with offices from 2023 because some of those Congress people may not even be here after the election. 468 seats are up for re-election in November.

"In an optimistic scenario, lawmakers would seize the farm bill as a last chance to advance bipartisan legislation before the general election. Alternately, “the year could feature continued policy brinksmanship with the only agreements being made when consequences of delay are most severe,” wrote Keeney.

“The delay in passing federal spending bills for 2024 means that the farm bill debate is going to be pushed into the meat of a general election year where debates in Congress serve proxy for broader agenda items (e.g. immigration or international aid) making compromises more difficult to achieve.”

We didn't plan on having to work on the Farm Bill for 2 years...only for 1 year. We wanted to pivot to launching more legislation. With that said, we need you now more than ever so that we can adjust to these timelines.

Join us.

www.afa.farm

AFA's Think About It Piece --- The USA is heavily exploited for our vast farmland & taxpayer paid subsidies that increase profits for land owners by reducing overhead costs & preventing failure. It's the perfect recipe for maximizing profits.

U.S. Agriculture & Blood Diamonds: A Troubling Parallel

The U.S. agriculture industry shares alarming similarities with the blood diamond trade:

1. Overuse of Land: Just as blood diamonds deplete natural resources, large-scale farming exhaustively uses vast tracts of land, often leading to environmental destruction.

2. Exploitation of Local Communities: Similar to how diamond mining exploits local populations, big agribusiness often disregards the well-being of local communities, focusing instead on profit.

3. Exporting Wealth to the Rich: In both industries, the bulk of profits flow to wealthy corporations or individuals, with little benefit to those who work or live near the land.

4. Child Labor and Fatal Risks: Like the hazardous conditions in diamond mines, agriculture employs children in dangerous roles, leading to serious and sometimes deadly accidents.

5. Colonial Profit Models: Both sectors often operate on a model where external entities extract significant wealth, leaving local populations with minimal benefits.

6. Low to No Wages: Workers in both industries frequently face exploitation through extremely low wages or, in some cases, conditions akin to indentured servitude.

These similarities highlight a troubling pattern of exploitation that we sort of let happen right under our noses.

Thoughts? Any other similarities you think are worth adding?

www.afa.farm

"

We're a lobbying group for vegans. And this system not only is it unfair, but it helps no one. It's just wasteful, cruel and makes $$$ for the dairy monopolies.

1.433 billion pounds of over-produced milk is $3.4 billion dollars of milk that "fed" no one.

Join us.

www.afa.farm

Dairy's Stockpile Scam

What has changed since the 2018 Vox Article on the large cheese stockpile of unsold cheese from 2018, over 5 years ago?? Not a lot. Numbers from 2018 were 1.39 Billion pounds of cheese vs numbers released in December 2023, show that 1.433 Billion pounds of cheese.

Government estimates within the past year have pointed to a national surplus of between 1.4 billion and 1.5 billion pounds of cheese in cold storage, which is approximately $3.4 billion worth of cheese.

Don't let this fool you, just because private companies now share the cheese --- it's still the government or our taxes that bought them back: "Andrew Novakovic, professor of agri economics at Cornell University, told Newsweek that the U.S. cheese stockpile has grown partly because cheese is harder to get rid of, whereas other dairy products like nonfat dry milk can be sold in foreign markets.

"[The stockpile] is typically owned by those that make the cheese," Novakovic said. "Sometimes there will be others downstream, a distributor or broker, who will pick it up. Sometimes a buyer, like a Kroger or Pizza Hut, will buy it. But by and large, it's the commercial owners."

Dairy farmers continue to produce cheese under an open offer from the government to buy it.

And when anyone tries to understand consumption, they simply look at all the cheese produced, but when so much is bailed out, it isn't actual demand and so no one can give you a firm answer into how much Dairy Americans are really purchasing/demanding.

And this is why the entire movement is so confused about why dairy seems like it's dying, but doesn't really ever die. It's because dairy is fail-proof and our taxes are used to make dairy seem like an ag sub-sector that is working vs failing.

To be crisp --- dairy is failing, but the policies in place, make dairy fail-proof to consumer losses. So let's stop drinking milk & eating cheese because it is the right thing to do...but if you want to save dairy cows...we have to reverse these policies.

AFA is a lobbying group for vegans who want to fix policy like the policy that protects dairy. Join us. www. afa.farm

You are AFA. Every organization relies on donors & donations to do what they do. And none of our lobbying and presence in DC is possible without you. It's a pleasure to create a channel of communication in this Big Arena. It's clear that we need to be here and remind politicians that they represent us -- and they cannot keep giving meat & dairy corporations a free cash grab to our taxes.

We have a lot of work to do in 2024 and we need the entire movement behind us to do it.

You are AFA.

www.agriculturefairnessalliance.org

Delay. Delay. Delay. Hurry up. Breaking news. A date has been set. We have said this for awhile...we had to be in DC to give it our best shot. Because they will toy with timelines so much and the amount of flexibility you must have to change your days, times and meetings could make you miss a lot of important progress.

Stepping into 2024 with some plant pep in our step.

The Farm Bill, while a priority for Congress has been extended to 2024. This isn't necessarily good or bad news, it just is a monster of a bill that needs more time.

What does Policy change look like when you include vegan ideals into the mix. It means accessible fruits, veggies & human grade grains. It means localized food systems (Plant Based). It means incentivizing plant based farming. It means healing our planet.

AFA can’t do this without donations --- donations & recurring members help us lobby in DC.

If you want to take your activism further, join us in this fight. If you are already a member, share our work.

www.agriculturefairnessalliance.com

🌟 Exciting News as We Look Ahead to 2024! 🌟

🚀 We're thrilled to launch our brand new website for 2024, packed with fresh, dynamic ways to fuel your activism journey. It's all about making a bigger, bolder impact together! Check it out and join us in this vibrant new chapter. 🌐 www.agriculturefairnessalliance.org

But that's not all! 🌱 Our heart and soul remain dedicated to making impact and changes to the Farm Bill. As we wrap up conversations with Congress for the winter break, we're gearing up for an even more impactful 2024. Our mission? To weave accessibility to vegan food into the fabric of this bill, save animals and spark a plant-based revolution in how our tax dollars are spent.

The journey hasn't been easy. The playing field in DC is challenging & stacked against us, but our passion is our power. We're steadfast in our resolve to bring about change. 🌿💪

The renewal of the Farm Bill, initially set for 2023, is now shifting to 2024. Let's use this opportunity to create a food system that's fair, sustainable, and kind to our planet. 🌍

📢 And hey, anyone live in Iowa??! We want to hear from you. Your voice is crucial in this movement. Give us a shout and be a part of this transformative journey. 📣

Together, we're not just dreaming of change – we're making it happen. Let's step into 2024 with hope, action, and the power of community. 💚

#2024

https://veganicsummit.com/

Take a listen if you want to learn more about changing the food system from a veganic lens.

Did you watch the final talk at the Veganic Summit about transforming food policy for a plant-based future? https://veganicsummit.com/

We spoke with Connie Spence from the Agriculture Fairness Alliance and Ina Maria Toncescu from Canadians for Responsible Food Policy about:

🌿 How animal agriculture is currently propped up by your tax dollars
🌿 Shifting subsidies toward a plant-based food system
🌿 How you can advocate and lobby for policy change

If you missed the Veganic Summit, you can still sign up and watch all the replays!
👉 https://veganicsummit.com/

If you watched this talk, tell us what you think! 👩‍🌾

Sometimes someone's full life story may not make sense in any 1 moment...but when you put all those moments together, they come together in a perfect recipe that makes them a great public figure & advocate for our movement. Agriculture Fairness Alliance board member, Renee King-Sonnen, founder of Rowdy Girl Sanctuary and Rancher Advocacy Program has been making waves with a Documentary about her life amongst a bunch of other BIG things brewing...including getting an article highlighting her life in Bon Appetit found here: https://www.bonappetit.com/story/vegan-ranch-texan-cattle-country

"Right now, Renee is focused on writing a memoir about her life story and sits on the Agriculture Fairness Alliance’s board of directors. The organization is currently lobbying for government subsidies to help farmers transition from raising animals to growing plant-based foods."

Bravo Renee!! Give it a read & share.

The Texas Cattle Ranchers Who Went Vegan In the heart of Texan cattle country, Renee King-Sonnen and Tommy Sonnen turned their ranch into an animal sanctuary. It changed everything for them.

📢 URGENT CALL TO ACTION

Our vegan lobbyists are employed by our members — this is why we need your support.

Dear friends and supporters,

Every voice matters, every action counts. As a vegan, you're already making a significant impact by choosing compassion over cruelty. Now, it's time to take your influence further. By donating to AFA, you can help bring the values and principles of veganism to the forefront of legislative change. Our mission in Congress is to advocate for animal rights, create laws that increase access to vegan food, and to change how our taxes are used. Your donation fuels this vital work, giving your vegan voice the political representation it deserves. Join us in this empowering movement - Stand with AFA, stand for a future where every living being is respected and protected.

⏰ Take action now! Your contribution to Agriculture Fairness Alliance will make a tangible impact on animal liberation, while empowering small-scale farmers and marginalized communities. Together, we can transform the food system to be more equitable, sustainable, and compassionate. Click the link below to donate and share this post to spread the word. Thank you for your generosity and commitment to a fairer world!

Donate now at - https://agriculturefairnessalliance.org/support/ It costs less than coffee and muffin for 2!