The records are arranged in five series: ADMINISTRATIVE FILES, CORRESPONDENCE, PUBLICATIONS, DUMP THE NATIONAL DAIRY BOARD CAMPAIGN, and SUBJECT FILES.
The Family Farm Defenders records are strongest in documenting the organization's beginnings and early years, with the bulk of the records relating to the Dump the National Dairy Board Campaign (1991-1995), which pre-dates the official establishment of FFD in 1994.
The ADMINISTRATIVE FILES series includes annual meeting materials, committee and grant files, Family Farmer Cheese project files, and a small amount of records relating to a predecessor organization, the Wisconsin Family Farm Defense Fund.
The CORRESPONDENCE series covers incoming and outgoing correspondence from 1993 to 2001. Ruth Simpson, John Kinsman, Francis Goodman, and David Rhodes of FFD are the most well documented correspondents. Some news clippings and other documents included in the correspondence remains with this series.
The PUBLICATIONS series includes booklets, newsletters and information bulletins, and a 2011 tribute to founder and FFD president, John Kinsman. Later issues of the Defender, the FFD periodical, are held by the Wisconsin Historical Society Library.
The DUMP THE NATIONAL DAIRY BOARD CAMPAIGN series provides extensive documentation of the campaign, and includes records related to the bloc voting issue, such as hearing testimony and filed documents for the lawsuit brought by a group of dairy farmers; a chronology of key campaign events; correspondence primarily related to the Dump campaign; press releases; editorials; and hearing transcripts and legal documents relating to the administrative appeal challenging the results of the 1993 referendum to end mandatory checkoff funding for the NDB. Much of the outgoing correspondence is addressed to Secretary of Agriculture William Espy; also included are responses from Espy or other USDA representatives, such as William Blanchard or Richard McKee.
The SUBJECT FILES series includes correspondence, news clippings, and other documents related to the 1995 Farm Bill, rBGH, milk pricing, and other topics. Also included are partial records (meeting minutes, memos, newsletters, and news clippings) of the American Raw Milk Producers Pricing Association (ARMPPA), another organization in which John Kinsman was involved.
