Fair Farm Project
Supports the Sustainable Development Goals
Poverty, food, and food production are all connected. Those in poverty often struggle to have access to good, wholesome food and may not have access to enough calories either way. The lack of food makes it hard to have the energy and health to reach out to resources which can better a person's situation. Food production has become increasingly consolidated with a smaller and smaller labor force thus allowing industrialized agriculture to push small farms out of business, take financial advantage of contract farmers and farm workers, and undercut local and foreign producers thus making them dependent on fragile industrial systems and, once those systems fail, face the risks of starvation and subsequent poverty.
​
Fair Farm Project supports practices which help break the cycle of poverty. We support fair wages for farm workers and increased worker protections. We support decentralized farms which increases the amount of jobs available in local communities and improves transparency in labor practices. We support education and localized farming practices so communities can ensure they are able to feed themselves rather than depend on industrial systems which are fragile and likely to fail in events such as COVID-19.
Hunger and malnutrition are issues which people face across the globe. Increasingly centralized, industrial, and fragile food systems are destroying local food economies and leaving entire nations susceptible to food distribution collapsing and thousands hungry and in need. Industrial systems are able to lower their costs so much they can outcompete small farms on local and international scales, thus reducing the diversity of food grown and, as a result, increasing malnutrition through limited, often processed food choices. A decreasingly sustainable food system is putting future generations at risk as farms begin to fail from poor soil and water quality.
​
Fair Farm Project supports decentralized and diversified agriculture which means local food systems and supply. By strengthening these local systems, a failure in one area will be able to find help from another and stave off hunger rather than a problem in one area destroying the supply chain across the country. Small, local farms allow people to grow culturally important food and keep diverse, fresh produce in their diets and stave off malnutrition. By staying small, farms can be sustainable for their local environment and ensure they will stay productive for generations to come.
Factory farms and intensive animal confinement lead to a plethora of deadly diseases humans face including swine flu, avian flu, and more. Factory farms also overuse antibiotics to prevent illness in the animals due to their filthy, confined conditions, and this overuse is risking the effectiveness of antibiotics in humans. Industrial farming has been linked to severe water and air pollution which directly impacts local communities and indirectly impacts larger societies as they face problems associated with contaminated drinking water, ocean dead zones, poor air quality, and impacts from climate change. Using manure and body parts from slaughtered animals has been linked to disease outbreaks on produce, such as e-coli on lettuce which is due to animal manure use in fields.
​
Fair Farm Project practices eliminate many of these problems. Without factory farming, antibiotic overuse would end. Disease outbreaks spreading from sick farm animals to humans would end. Breaking our reliance on manure and slaughter products to grow produce would help prevent outbreaks of e-coli and similar diseases we suffer from. Sustainable farming systems that work with the native ecology drastically reduces water and air pollution which in turn can reduce or eliminate issues associated with industrial farming from respiratory issues to contaminated drinking water.
Knowledge of food and farming has decreased as urbanization has increased over the generations. Even for those with knowledge in the field, knowing how food can be grown sustainably is still largely forgotten. Across the globe ancient, sustainable practices have been fighting to be remembered in modern farming. Education and technological development today can teach us additional methods of sustainable farming and ways to reduce reliance on things like fossil fuels.
​
Fair Farm Project's roots are in education. Our first project, Take a Seat, is an interactive system which teaches people about reducing waste and growing food hyper-locally. We are teaching people about soil health and farming practices old and new. We aim to work with individuals, schools, community gardens, farms, and cities to help revolutionize our food system for a better future. We hope to connect people to their own roots whether that be getting dirt under their fingernails or creating more opportunities to eat the foods from their culture and heritage. We want to reconnect people not just to the food we all eat every day, but where it comes from and how we can produce it in harmony with our planet and each other. Without quality education, sustainable food is not possible.
The vast majority of farmers in the US are men, and women on farms often take more of a supporting role than a leading role. LGBTQ+ farmers take up an even smaller role in the agricultural world. Property and land ownership as well as gainful employment and leadership roles are key to gender equality.
​
Fair Farm Project supports women and LGBTQ+ farmers. We want this field to be open and welcome to all genders with equal opportunities for education, growth, employment, and farm ownership. We believe anyone can grow food with the right help and support, and we don't want opportunities to close just because of someone's gender identity. FFP also supports food procurement efforts for marginalized groups and people in need regardless of gender. Growing food should be an inclusive activity and profession, and obtaining food is a basic human right no one should be denied.
Industrial agriculture and factory farming animals has been a blight on water supplies across the country. The majority of CAFOs do not operate with a water discharge permit by the EPA, and CAFOs in general are the only type of industrial facility which doesn't have to treat their waste water. Even proper manure lagoons (lakes of fecal matter, urine, and cleaning products, antibiotics, and animal body parts from CAFOs) are designed to leak at a rate of 1-5,000 gallons of untreated waste per day into the ground per acre. Synthetic fertilizers are prone to run off, especially with their heavy use, and combined with animal ag are one of the leading causes of ocean dead zones and can cause events like red tide.
​
Fair Farm Project inherently fights against this pollution by removing animals from farming. Without billions of farmed animals creating many times more waste than the human population and without the antibiotics, hormones, and synthetically fertilized foods used to keep them alive, the sources of water pollution caused by them are simply gone. By promoting small scale, diversified, and sustainable plant production, the soil becomes much more absorbent and able to handle the nutrients which break down from plant residues and green manure. FFP supports a sustainable soil ecosystem which eliminates much of the water pollution caused by modern farming.
It is no secret that our reliance on fossil fuels and dirty energy is fueling the climate crisis we're in. Most people know fossil fuels make their way into agriculture through traditional methods such as transport and slaughter trucks, planes, cargo ships, and more, but transportation is only a small piece of the puzzle. Fossil fuels are also used in the production of plastics often used for covering rows of crops, building hoop houses, or various plastic structures around a farm. Fossil fuels are used to create synesthetic fertilizer and to provide power to massive industrial sheds for confined animals. And much more.
​
Fair Farm Project supports a shift away from fossil fuels to renewable energy for the production of various goods in farming. We support transitioning to electric vehicles and shortening shipping distances of food to reduce even the impact those vehicles have. We support solar energy produced on farms to meet the farms' needs as well as educating gardeners about sustainable alternatives to plastic and energy consumption at their own gardens and homes. We hope for a future where dirty energy becomes a thing of the past, and energy requirements are reduced overall.
The agricultural work force is ripe with labor issues. As farms grow and consolidate in more and more remote regions, they pull money out of local economies which have relied on small scale agriculture for generations. As industrial labor is increasingly mechanized the products monocultured or the animals increasingly confined, fewer and fewer people are hired for work. As these major companies lobby for more power and escape the public eye, human rights abuses run rampant from child labor in slaughterhouses to leasing prisoners for no pay to work grueling hours in the field, threats of corporal punishment looming over them.
​
Fair Farm Project supports solutions to all these problems. We support growing and stabilizing local economies by bringing local food back to more regions. We support diversified agriculture which inherently requires more workers and creates more jobs. Through the small scale, we promote greater transparency to hold farms accountable for how they treat their workers and make it harder for them to abuse vulnerable communities to save a buck. Farming is hard physical labor, there is no denying that, but Fair Farm Project does not support abusing anyone, human or otherwise, to produce that labor or become just another product. We support fair wages and fair practices for everyone in agriculture.
Industrial agriculture seems to be the heart of industry, innovation, and infrastructure. Yet it has countless problems. Hyper-streamlined and centralized ag systems leaves production and distribution incredibly vulnerable to system shocks, such as COVID-19, which leaves vulnerable communities food insecure. The vertical structure of contract growers raising animals for corporations has been likened to modern indentured servitude with the millions of dollars of debt and high risks the farmers face while the company rarely suffers a scratch. Pollution, animal abuse, monoculture, biodiversity loss and all have followed the industrialization of agriculture.
​
Fair Farm Project does support industry, innovation, and infrastructure in smaller scale, diverse, and more local systems. We support tech development for more food security and sustainability throughout the food system. We support the home gardeners and farmers exploring alternative methods like hydroponics for produce. We support city initiatives for compost collection and food distribution. We believe that when it comes to food, strong, local structures are key to progress. We believe innovation can drive this progress, but it's time to stop putting bandages over the social, environmental, and ethical blight that is modern industrial agriculture.
The current food system depends on creating and maintaining severe inequalities between companies, farm owners, farm workers, drivers, slaughterhouse workers, nonhumans, and more. More and more child labor is being exposed in slaughterhouses. Refugees are promised a better life only to be trucked to PTSD inducing jobs. H-2A visas are held over farm workers to treat them like servants in the field. Prisoners can be leased like equipment from prisons for little to no pay and no workplace protections. Farmers of color and non-cis male gender orientation face higher barriers to getting established in the field. And all of this not to forget the hundreds of millions of animals who are neglected, beaten, abused, and ultimately killed as production units on a disassembly line rather than as living, sentient individuals.
​
Fair Farm Project fights against all these inequalities. We seek to remove animal exploitation entirely from agriculture and promote rescuing and protecting our fellow species. We support all genders and races who want to farm and garden. We support smaller farms with higher transparency closer to their customers so that they cannot get away with treating humans like farm equipment. We support the end of slaughterhouses not only for the animals, but also to put an end to one of the most dangerous and psychologically damaging jobs in the US. We believe workers deserve fair pay and protection, and children have no place on a kill floor.
Sustainable communities lift their residents up. They have systems in place to care for their residents and help other communities in need. They are inclusion oriented and take the needs of their residents into consideration all through their development. They consider air and water quality, waste management, food access, green space access, and the cultural backgrounds of their residents.
​
Fair Farm Project is a natural piece of sustainable cities and communities. We hope to work with other organizations to improve food distribution so excess food goes to those in needs. We support sustainable, local farming to reduce the impact we have on the environment while improving food security. We promote green spaces with edible landscapes for the mental and physical health of residents. We aim to help people grow the foods important to their culture and their heritage rather than the homogenized mega-crops that dominate industrial food production. We connect farmers, gardeners, and consumers so people can be empowered to make the food choices that are right for them and can hold each other accountable with good production practices. FFP supports an integrated, supported, and sustainable human community.
There are 4 R's in the sustainable use lifecycle. Refuse what you do not need or truly want to prevent excess in the first place. Reduce what you do purchase so less goes to waste before it goes bad. Reuse what you can to keep products out of methane-producing landfills (and in turn reduce how much you purchase!). Recycle what you can so it can be remade into something new and Reduce the amount of resources required for brand new products.
​
Fair Farm Project integrates all these practices into our model. We Refuse to use one of the most environmentally destructive components of food production: reliance on farmed animals. We Reduce our reliance on synthetic soil amendments (Refusing whenever possible), fossil fuels, and harmful pest and weed killers. We promote reusing equipment as much as possible. That bird netting to protect your berries? Roll it up carefully so it doesn't become a tangled mess that has to be thrown away and may wind up choking rather than repelling birds. And, finally, we promote recycling materials properly and "recycling" food waste and plant residues via compost so that they can grow more plants in turn and reduce our reliance on all the above mentioned. By creating a circular food economy, we can eliminate a lot of the environmental destruction the current industrialized farm system inherently causes.
It's no secret: climate change is happening, and our planetary landscape is going to look and feel incredibly different in the next few decades. The world is warming, oceans are acidifying, air quality is worsening, fresh water is disappearing, forests are being slashed and burned, deserts are growing, biodiversity is falling, and severe pollution continues unabated. We are at a point in history where we not only need to mitigate as many of these changes as possible, but we also need to adapt and prepare for the changes that are already taking place. With food production being one of the leading causes of many climate and planetary boundary crossings, it's one of the largest opportunities for change.
​
Fair Farm Project is working on all fronts to reduce the climate and environmental impacts of food production. For more information, look to the other goals. When it comes to adaptation, FFP believes that strong, local food production and strong social systems for food security will be key to success. We promote growing regionally appropriate food and focusing on resilient crops. We promote permaculture to create food ecosystems which are stronger against impacts such as fires and floods. From roots to harvest, we are helping to ensure humans can be fed for generations to come.
Animal agriculture is a major impact on ocean pollution and dead zones. It comes not only from the untreated fecal waste from billions of farmed animals in the US but also from the waste from their corpses in slaughter plants that can get flushed into waterways, the antibiotics that are standard in their feed, and the runoff from the majority of monoculture crop land which is grown to feed them rather than us. Industrial fish farming causes immense pollution from their systems, even so-called "closed loop" terrestrial systems, and farm bred-bred fish are liable to escape their environments and breed with wild fish, thus reducing their fitness and ability to thrive. Fish farming also depends on monoculture crops or wild fish harvest to feed the typically carnivorous fish we eat. Finally, industrial fishing is decimating oceans from by-catch killing everything from rare fish species to whales to sharks to turtles. Bottom trawling for shrimp and other species destroys coastal ecosystems and reefs. And regulations in the US have proven to be nearly ineffective at preventing the rapid species decline still occurring in many legal fisheries.
​
Fair Farm Projects support for life below water is simple in this case. Everything described above? We don't participate in it. At all. While monoculture may still exist in the future, on a plant-based diet only about 25% of current farmland would be needed to feed exclusively humans. That alone is a 75% reduction in food systems which destroy life below water.
We are currently in the 6th mass extinction: an event marked by biodiversity loss. Agriculture, particularly animal agriculture, is a leading cause of biodiversity loss. Why? It causes severe amounts of pollution and contamination. It promotes desertification (or, in cases such as the Sonoran Desert, grasslandification). It's a leading driver of deforestation not only for grazing land, but for crop land specifically to grow crops to feed animals. Wildlife is often persecuted to protect cows from predators and to prevent competition with native herbivores.
​
Fair Farm Project addresses so many of the issues caused by animal agriculture with one simple answer: stop animal agriculture. Stop using the vast majority of farmland to grow feed for animals. Stop turning the wilderness into increasingly barren rangeland for cows. Help forests regrow by removing the cows who eat the young shoots of trees. Support rewilding 75% of the world's farmland, a surface roughly the size of Africa, by adopting a plant-based diet which only requires about 25% of current global farmland. Cut out the animal middle-man and compost the entirety of plant residues rather than compost what's leftover after digestion. Preserve life by stopping the mass slaughter of animals, both domestic and not.
Contract growers are left powerless and deep debt from the companies they work for. Children have been discovered working in slaughterhouses time and time again, and now there's some interest in legalizing this child labor. Prisoners can be leased like farm equipment to kill hundreds of animals per day or work long, relentless hours under mounted supervision in crop fields. Migrant workers have their H-2A visas held over them to enable exploiting them, sometimes to death, while being kept in terrible living conditions. Farmed animals are explicitly excluded from almost all animal cruelty laws, thus acknowledging how cruel we are to them, but permitting them to suffer anyway. Agriculture is rife with abuse and exploitation at every level of production, no matter whether it's farming plants or farming animals.
​
Fair Farm Project has a simple stance: food production should not rely on suffering, exploitation, and illegal labor practices. It should not take blood, not the literal blood of dead animals nor the figurative blood of exploited workers, to grow carrots. We support workers' and animals' rights. We envision a future where food may still take hard work and dedication, but companies no longer cut corners by causing suffering and pain for cheap labor or production costs.
All the world is a community. Our successes and failures are shared between neighbors, cities, states, and countries. To succeed, we must work together.
​
Fair Farm Project supports projects which build humans and nonhumans up. We support goals aimed towards bettering ourselves, each other, and the planet. As we grow, we hope to work with other organizations and create coalitions and teams which work towards these goals in a human-centered design sort of way. The world's problems can't be solved alone.
Together we can make a difference.
The content of this publication has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States. To learn more go to: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment