phl63 A Good Reason for Rural Rage: The Crushing Power of Corporate Meat
It’s no secret that rural Americans are angry with the Washington elite. Less discussed are some of the sensible reasons for it. For far too longphl63, family farms have been crushed under the monopolistic power of Big Ag. And for decades, politicians from both parties either turned a blind eye to the oligopolies that rule over rural America — or climbed right into bed with them.
Take the chicken industry, for instance. With just four companies controlling over half of poultry production in the country, chicken processors have been able to collude to suppress wages, fix prices and retaliate against farmers who speak out. Poultry growers have little recourse when Big Chicken gives them a raw deal. Roughly a quarter live in places where there’s just one company to work with. Half live in places where there are no more than two.
That’s not a recipe for a healthy democracy — or a healthy food system, for that matter — and rural Americans know it. Some 88 percent of rural voters in battleground states say they would be more favorable toward a candidate who supports “cracking down on meat processing monopolies and ensuring local businesses can compete,” according to a poll this year by the Rural Democracy Initiative, a funding collaborative that marshals resources for rural communities.
Which brings me to the question of why Kamala Harris isn’t highlighting this administration’s admirable track record of taking on Big Ag. Since President Biden signed an executive order promoting competition in 2021, this administration has done more to level the playing field for chicken farmers than any in recent memory — but you wouldn’t know it from listening to stump speeches.
In 2022, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit alleging that Sanderson Farms and Wayne Farms, two chicken processors, engaged in deceptive practices that arbitrarily reduced farmers’ pay, eventually winning reforms to a hated system that landed many farmers in unsustainable debt. Last year, the Justice Department stopped Koch Foods from charging family farms a crippling “exit” fee when they wanted to stop raising chickens for the company.
And this year, the Department of Agriculture is rolling out rules to give teeth to the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921, a law that is supposed to protect farmers and ranchers from collusion and abuse but has rarely been enforced. One proposed rule would grant poultry farmers across the country similar protection from arbitrary reductions to their payments that farmers won in the Sanderson case. A new rule bans retaliation against farmers who complain about their treatment.
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