Get loud for the soul and future of rural agriculture

A new short film premiered by the Wisconsin Farmers Union (WFU), which digs in on the concentration crisis in America. Get Loud: The Fight for the Soul of Agriculture features voices from the WFU, alongside antitrust researcher and author Austin Frerick.

The core question at the heart of the film – what kind of food system do we want?

“The current food system is not serving farmers, laborers in the supply chain, nor consumers,” said WFU communications director Danielle Endvick. “Instead, it’s serving a handful of powerful monopolies, who control nearly every aspect of the food supply chain, and incentivize consolidation and concentration. We are at this fork in the road, where we can either restore some vibrancy to rural America, or we can continue down the path we’re on.”

The film shares how a decline in the vitality of rural communities coincided with concentration in agricultural and retail food markets, with family farms bearing the brunt.

As Dunn County sheep farmer and WFU special projects director Lauren Langworthy points out in the film, farmer movements helped usher in Progressive Era trustbusting and economic reforms.

“There was this massive amount of consolidation, and the people rose up and they said no more of this,” said Langworthy. “We’re in that moment again and we have this huge opportunity. We have the laws we need on the books, we just need to be enforcing them.”

The public is encouraged to reach out to legislators and ask for change, with the film helping educate consumers.

To view the film, visit wisconsinfarmersunion.com.