About the Farm Security Initiative
Who We Are
The Farm Security Initiative (FSI) is a nonpartisan effort to protect American farmland from consolidation and speculation. We believe land is more than acreage — it is the foundation of family independence, the anchor of rural communities, and the backbone of national sovereignty. When farms pass from one generation to the next, they carry with them not only livelihoods, but the skills, traditions, values, and networks that bind families and towns together. Our mission is simple: to keep land in family hands through land-security programs that protect ownership through difficult years, to protect and revitalize rural communities, and to ensure a resilient and sovereign future for American agriculture.
Our Mission
At its core, FSI is about people — farmers, families, and communities. Our mission is to safeguard their land, their independence, and the local ownership that holds our country together.
Why FSI Exists
The fight to save America’s farms is, in truth, a rearguard action — not only for agriculture, but for the United States itself. When farmland is lost to speculation or consolidation, it is not only the land that disappears. Families lose the skills honed over generations, the traditions and values that knit rural life together, and the networks of neighbors and communities that sustain both culture and economy. The erosion of land ownership is the erosion of independence, and with it, the erosion of the republic itself. FSI exists to hold that line — to keep land in family hands through land-security programs that protect ownership through difficult years, to protect and strengthen rural communities, and to ensure a future where local ownership remains the backbone of a sovereign nation.
About Founder Stephen Banks
Steve Banks is a builder, a writer and a citizen.
The oldest of five, Steve was raised by a single mother. When he was in high school, she bought a Victorian house in St. Paul, Minnesota and he and a younger brother taught themselves to use a hammer, a tape measure and a circular saw.
He is a US Army Veteran and a graduate of the University of Minnesota with a degree in Chinese language.
He lived in Tokyo, Japan for three years where he wrote advertising and technical copy for Honda, Toyota, Canon, Mitsubishi, Yanmar Diesel, Hakuhodo, among others.
Steve, his first wife and his brother spent thirteen months riding Honda motorcycles through SE Asia, Australia, India, Nepal, and the African Continent; east to west from Tanzania to Togo then north across the desert to Algiers, the ferry to Marseilles.
Broke from the trip, Steve started a construction company. He grew it to sixty employees and $20M in annual revenue and ran it for twenty-eight years. The company was licensed and performed commercial and federal government projects in all fifty states.
As an athlete, Steve maxed the PT test in Army basic training, earned a blackbelt in Shotokan Karate in Tokyo, and raced triathlon for many years including Ironman, Half-Ironman, Escape from Alcatraz and numerous sprint events.
He married the love of his life, Jane. They’ve been married for 32 years and have two kids, Eli, 31 and Coco, 29. Steve and Jane live in Minneapolis with two cats and a dog.
Steve closed his company, Division21, Inc. in 2019. Now he rides his Harley Davidson through the farm fields of America and listens and reads and thinks and writes.