Here's a letter-writing campaign that Fair Food Fight fully endorses. US Working Group on the Food Crisis says your action is needed by Thursday, December 31, 2009. Please act!

From their TAKE BACK CONTROL OF YOUR FOOD campaign:

There are two million farmers and 300 million eaters in the United States. Standing between them are a handful of corporations who control how food gets from one side to the other.

Let’s change the equation.

For the first time ever, the Department of Justice is on a fact-finding mission looking at how big business controls food and farming -- and they want to hear from YOU. They are specifically seeking comments and stories about how corporate control of the food system affects average citizens. 

Sponsors of this letter-writing campaign have good suggestions for how to write your letter to the Department of Justice, and Fair Food Fight wanted to throw in some ideas, too. Especially regarding how "corporate control of the food system affects average citizens."

Below are some examples of how "corporate control of food" hits average citizens like us. Feel free to incorporate these points into your letter, using your own voice. Your letter will have greater impact that way.

TALKING POINTS:

* If small farms are threatened by corporate control of pricing and contracts, my food security is threatened, too.

Example 1: During the national dairy crisis, economists predicted that the average family dairy would lose $180,000 this year. Meanwhile, the largest dairy corporation in America, Dean Foods, posted 30% growth in the 3rd quarter of 2009, when the dairy crisis was peaking.

Example 2: Dean Foods and Dairy Farmers of America are accused of monopolistic behavior by driving down prices on milk paid to dairy farmers.

How can our farmers make a living when corporations are all but driving them out of business? If milk buyers like Dean Foods could cut profiteering down to, say, 15%, and pay a sustainable price on milk, maybe our dairy farmers wouldn't be in financial crisis.

* Monopolistic control of the seed industry impacts my grocery bill.

* Example 1: From the Associated Press: "Declining competition in the seed business could lead to price hikes that ripple out to every family's dinner table. That's because the corn flakes you had for breakfast, soda you drank at lunch and beef stew you ate for dinner likely were produced from crops grown with Monsanto's patented genes."

If farmers are forced to pay more for corporate-controlled seed, their rising costs will impact me eventually. 

* Corporate agricultural concerns outweigh my health concerns.

Example: Because Big Ag needs certain dangerous pesticides to protect giant monocrops of corn and soybeans, the threat of these pesticides to human health is often diminished, overlooked, or ignored altogether.

I want my government to better protect my health from corporate interests.

***

Back to US Working Group on Food Crisis:

If you're concerned that just a few big businesses have so much power over where your food comes from and how it's produced, tell the government! Your comments will help to inform a series of hearings on the issue next year.

E-mail your comments to agriculturalworkshops@usdoj.gov BY DECEMBER 31. The few minutes you take to write your letter could curb big business's power over our food!

That's next Wendesday, Fair Food Fighters!