A new political action committee has been formed to represent agriculture and consumers. The announcement was made at Friday’s annual conference of the Organization for Competitive Markets. OCM Executive Director Joe Maxwell was chosen to serve as President of Family Farm Action.

Chosen as Chair of Family Farm Action is Lillian Salerno, former USDA Undersecretary for Rural Development. She says small and medium sized farmers and ranchers and businesses need a group to represent them against multi national interests that has led to monopolies and ag concentration.

Maxwell says one of the goals of Family Farm Action is to restore competitive markets for U.S. agriculture.

Maxwell says Family Farm Action is calling for a new Farmer Bill of Rights to level the playing field and let family farmers compete. The platform calls for limitation on contract farming, new restrictions on foreign ownership of American farmland and renewed antitrust provisions to break agribusiness monopolies.