For more information contact:  Katherine Ozer, Executive Director, National Family Farm Coalition, 202-421-4544, kozer@nffc.net; Lorette Picciano, Executive Director, Rural Coalition, 202-628-7161, lpicciano@ruralco.org; Rudy Arredondo, President, National Latino Farmers and Ranchers Trade Association, 202-628-1440, latinofarmers@live.com

November 15, 2016

Statement on Behalf of National Family Farm Coalition, Rural Coalition and National Latino Farmers and Ranchers Trade Association on the Demise of the Trans Pacific Partnership

Our organizations, representing diverse family farmers, ranchers and fishermen, farmworkers and rural communities, have worked diligently for many years to protect our communities from trade agreements written by corporate insiders seeking only corporate profits. With our counterparts in Mexico and Canada, we have witnessed and lived the devastating impacts of the North American Free Trade agreement on agriculture, workers, jobs and our environment.

For the past five years, we have joined forces with Members of Congress and a strong coalition of labor, environmental, consumer, faith, human rights, civil rights, health, progressive on-line organizations and activists to defeat the TPP. We also collaborated with our counterparts in other TPP nations to build an international movement of PEOPLE united on behalf of food, agriculture and trade policies that sustain working people and their communities.

We thank all of you for your campaigns to educate and organize your constituents, friends and families about the many concerns raised in the Trans Pacific Partnership:  competition from imported farm and fishery products produced by corporations, not communities; the loss of good jobs with higher wages; more expensive health care; and a degraded environment.

We will continue to be vigilant to end the era for trade agreements that are drafted by and for corporate interests to give working people the short, sharp end of the stick, and to create new rules to ensure that our trade policies protect the environment, address climate change, and defend labor and human rights while ensuring the safety of our food.

Again, thank you for all your great efforts and campaigns to stop the TPP. While there may no formal announcement from Congress or the Administration, please recognize this historic moment, which is more a beginning than an end.