Sen. Roger Marshall bill would let Big Ag run roughshod over states, small farmers | Opinion

For four generations, my family has worked the land in Burton and Tyro, Kansas.

From chasing farm dogs to sharing sauerkraut after church, this way of life is one worth preserving.

Yet small farmers, who survive by hard work and faith, are being squeezed by Big Agriculture and laws written to favor its interests.

The dream of caring for land and animals is becoming a nightmare.

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall’s proposed bill, “The Food Security and Farm Protection Act” follows a time-honored D.C. tradition of naming bills exactly the opposite of what they do.

This bill would allow out-of-state corporations, like China-owned Smithfield Foods, to legally challenge and overturn local farming laws — even ones passed by voters.

Marshall’s law is a response to a growing number of states, from conservative Utah to liberal Massachusetts, enshrining space standards for animals that small farms have followed for generations.

Take battery cages as a prominent example. Battery cages are tiny metal units where hens on large farms are forced to live their entire lives standing in an area the size of a piece of printer paper, clawing at three other birds for space to spread their wings.

Eight in ten Americans support restricting the use of battery cages because they are inhumane and super-charge the spread of diseases that can raise egg prices.

Should Marshall get to tell the people of Utah or Massachusetts what local standards they may or may not have for their eggs?

Many farms do not think so.

The last time corporate giants tried to overturn local laws giving animals more space, the effort was defeated by over a thousand local farms and allied, conservative House Republicans. They pointed out that removing these standards would give corporate giants an unfair edge, squeezing the family farms that already meet them — and creating a race to the bottom just to stay in business.

Marshall and his allies have also lost at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Three years ago, the Supreme Court — with a conservative majority — ruled that states have the constitutional right under the 10th Amendment to pass these local farm laws and that they are consistent with the interstate commerce clause.

Last month, the Supreme Court declined to hear another challenge to local laws put forward by the corporate interests behind Marshall’s bill.

Consistent with the ideals of a free market and local federalism, these laws simply require those doing business within a state’s boundaries to uphold basic standards for their products.

As the court said in National Pork Producers v. Ross in 2022, “While the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of pork chops [a state’s] merchants may sell is not on that list.”

Yet Marshall’s bill is not just about overturning local space standards for animals.

This proposed law could also give corporations the power to overturn rules that protect us from chemical pesticides as well. We are exposed to more of these hormone-disrupting chemicals than ever before, and we deserve better.

Families like mine who live by others’ fields — often downwind — deserve the right to know what is being sprayed and when.

In Iowa, where cancer rates are among the highest in the nation, locals are working to pass local labeling and notification laws for their state.

Yet if Marshall’s law passes, even those modest protections could be overturned by lawsuits.

Our small farmers are being squeezed harder than ever by the monopoly power of corporate giants.

Marshall’s bill squeezes the traditions of small farmers in Kansas and across the nation who have cared for their land and animals responsibly for generations.

We must stand up for fair competition and local control instead. Our way of life depends on it.

This story was originally published July 11, 2025 at 12:00 PM.