Rebuilding the Food Chain

By ART CULLEN

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack put it exactly right July 9 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, announcing a series of USDA actions to restore competition to the food supply chain: We have a generational opportunity to reverse 50 years of consolidation in agriculture, improve resiliency and diversity, battle climate change and protect workers.

Vilsack’s visit was a coordinated effort by the Biden Administration to restore competition across the economy, from digital technology to meatpacking. The former Iowa governor announced $500 million to assist new and existing small food processors with grants, loans and infrastructure. He is restoring the Packers and Stockyards Act protections for producers and will rebuild the agency that enforces it, the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), which was gutted by the Trump Administration. USDA will rewrite parts of the act to protect poultry growers, whose numbers have declined by 40%. Country of origin labeling standards will be enforced.

“The COVID-19 pandemic led to massive disruption for growers, food workers and consumers alike. It exposed a food system that was rigid, consolidated and fragile. Meanwhile, those growing, processing and preparing our food are earning less each year in a system that rewards size over all else,” Vilsack said. “To shift the balance of power back to the people, USDA will invest in building more, better and fairer markets for producers and consumers alike. The investments USDA will make in expanding meat and poultry capacity, along with restoration of the Packers and Stockyards Act, will begin to level the playing field for farmers and ranchers. This is a once in a generation opportunity to transform the food system so it is more resilient to shocks, delivers greater value to growers and workers, and offers consumers an affordable selection of healthy food produced and sourced locally and regionally by farmers and processors from diverse backgrounds. I am confident USDA’s investments in expanded capacity will spur millions more in leveraged funding from the private sector and state and local partners as our efforts gain traction across the country.”

It already has traction. The announcement brought praise from livestock groups, farmer organizations left and right, and Great Plains Republicans under pressure from cattlemen to address consolidation and contracted markets. As reported earlier in this space, Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Chuck Grassley of Iowa are leading an anti-trust lobby on the Agriculture and Judiciary committees dovetailing with the Vilsack initiative.

“This is a huge step attempting to level the playing field for farmers,” said Iowa Farmers Union President Aaron Lehman.

Vilsack has wasted little time stepping up for workers and producers. In January, the Administration refused to increase line speeds at poultry plants. It refused to speed up the lines in pork last spring in the face of intense criticism from the industry. For the first time in a half-century, someone is telling the packers “No.”

He knows all too well what consolidation has wrought in Iowa. We have half as many farmers. The independent pork producer was destroyed by Wall Street money in 1998. Buena Vista County (where Storm Lake is the county seat) has watched all its rural schools consolidate as its smallest communities wither.

We’re not sure how you unravel it all and refashion a healthier, more diverse system centered on workers, producers, consumers and communities. Farmers raising hogs for a corporate feeder depend on that stable income and aren’t necessarily inclined to expose themselves to the risks of independence. But those growers deserve to be protected from undue power, as do independent producers, who deserve open and competitive markets. The early talk in the Senate is to require that at least 50% of beef is purchased in an open market. As it stands, four packers control about 80% of the beef market. Pork and poultry are essentially controlled by three or four corporations, as is the seed industry. Price fixing is rampant. But it has been for over a century. Nobody has really tried to make the food supply chain fair; the goal has always been cheap. Cheap corn, cheap hogs, cheap labor, cheap food.

President Biden and Secretary Vilsack are addressing it head-on with serious proposals that enjoy bipartisan support. We must not let this opportunity slip by. It could save rural Iowa from its long and sad erosion.

Art Cullen, managing editor of The Progressive Populist, won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in his day job as editor of The Storm Lake (Iowa) Times (stormlake.com). He is author of the book “Storm Lake: Change, Resilience, and Hope from America’s Heartland.” Email times@stormlake.com.

From The Progressive Populist, August 15, 2021

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