The bipartisan Rural Independence Initiative will challenge corporate monopolies that have decimated small-town America and bankrupted family farms

Mexico, Missouri — Farm Action Fund today announced the launch of the Rural Independence Initiative, a new national political effort aimed at rebuilding economic power in rural America and challenging the corporate monopolies that increasingly control the nation’s food system, local economies, and political process.

A major focus of the initiative is to elect the best federal candidates, regardless of political affiliation, who support local farmers, rural America, and healthy food.  To that end, Farm Action Fund announced it has successfully secured the initial funding necessary to begin building the initiative and plans to invest approximately $500,000 during the 2026 election cycle to support targeted federal races where the organization believes it can demonstrate the growing political power of rural and working-class voters united around fair markets, healthy food, and economic independence.

The organization said the 2026 cycle will serve as the first phase of a long-term strategy to build a durable political movement ahead of the 2028 presidential election.

In conjunction with the launch, Farm Action Fund is releasing “RESTORING THE PROMISE: The Economic Case for the Rural Independence Initiative,” a new framework document outlining how decades of corporate concentration and failed economic policy hollowed out rural America, and what it will take to rebuild fair markets and shared prosperity.

“This initiative starts with a simple belief: rural America does not want special treatment — it wants fairness,” said Joe Maxwell, President of Farm Action Fund and former Missouri Lieutenant Governor.

“For decades, powerful corporations have consolidated control over our food system, our markets, and our communities while politicians in both parties looked the other way. Farmers are disappearing, small towns are struggling, families are paying more for food, and rural Americans feel like they are working harder just to fall further behind.”

“Our country didn’t fall apart because of our differences,” Maxwell continued. “It fell apart because monopolies and billionaires spent decades dividing Americans while they quietly took control of our economy and government. The Rural Independence Initiative is about bringing people back together around fair markets, strong communities, and economic independence.”

Farm Action Fund emphasized that the initiative is intentionally designed as a cross-partisan effort that welcomes Americans from different political backgrounds who are willing to work together to confront concentrated corporate power and restore local economic control.

Farm Action Fund said the initiative will combine communications, voter engagement, candidate education, grassroots organizing, and targeted political investments to help reshape the national conversation around food, health, agriculture, and economic fairness.

“This starts in rural America,” Maxwell said, “but it affects every American who eats.”

Contact: Joe Maxwell, jmaxwell@farmactionfund.us, 573.590.0421

About Farm Action Fund

Farm Action Fund is a nonpartisan organization building political power to challenge corporate monopolies, restore fair competition, and strengthen rural America. Through the Rural Independence Initiative, Farm Action Fund is working to build a cross-partisan movement focused on fair markets, healthy food, and economic independence for communities across the country.