By Craig Volland, Chair, Kansas Chapter Agriculture Committee
Farming in Kansas is truly Big Ag.
In March 2025, the Kansas Agriculture Deputy Secretary reported that "agriculture continues to be Kansas’ largest industry and economic driver, with 73 agriculture, food and food processing sectors combining for $61.89 billion in direct output in the Kansas economy... If you include the indirect and induced economic factors, Kansas agriculture has a total economic contribution of $88.1 billion and supports more than 260,000 jobs across the state (13% of the workforce)."
Yet the highly industrialized food and farm system found in Kansas and the rest of the country has negative implications for water quality and climate change. For years, the Sierra Club Kansas Chapter has devoted major resources to promote better farming practices in the face of Big Ag’s big political power. We have focused on challenging massive animal factories polluting our streams and encouraging members to support more sustainable local and regional food production primarily associated with farmers markets and specialized retail outlets.
At the national level, a group from the Sierra Club’s Grassroots Food and Agriculture Team flew into to Washington DC recently to promote Club policies in the long running battle over the Farm Bill renewal. To guide our efforts, the team produced a great Summary of Priorities and bullet points on Building a Better Farm Bill.
For example, a shift from using monoculture food production for confined livestock to adopting regenerative soil practices could remove and sequester enormous amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.
Among the Top Asks for Congress is opposing legislation that will allow cruelty, one of the worst characteristics of animal factories. The National Pork Producers Council (Big Pig) is trying to sneak a provision into the Farm Bill to overturn California’s Proposition 12 farm animal welfare law. Prop 12 was passed by a 2018 statewide referendum and upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2023. It went into full effect in 2024. An article from Civil Eats explains this controversy in detail and should be of interest to Kansans since our Senator Marshall is listed among leaders pushing Big Pig’s campaign. This proposed Farm Bill provision would also overrule farm animal welfare laws in several other states.
As the Farm Bill renewal battle heats up in August and September, please contact your congressional representatives and ask them to support of Sierra Club priorities.