Fundamental change in U.S. agricultural and rural policy is “an absolute necessity,” said Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders on Sunday in calling for Teddy “Roosevelt-style trust-busting laws to stop monopolization of markets and break up massive agribusinesses.” In a position paper, Sanders, pursuing the Democratic nomination for president, endorsed supply management — federal control over farm production — higher minimum prices for major commodities such as grain and milk and a return to a government-owned grain reserve “to alleviate the need for government subsidies and ensure we have a food supply in case of extreme weather events.”
If adopted, Sanders’ proposals would reverse three decades or more of free-market reforms that reduced the government role in agriculture. The reforms began with the 1985 farm law that encouraged farmers to sell their products rather than let them accumulate in price-depressing government-owned stockpiles, and flowered in the 1996 “freedom to farm” law that removed most federal controls over what farmers grow. In recent years, crop insurance, rather than farm subsidies, has been the biggest strand in the farm safety net.
“Agriculture today is not working for the majority of Americans,” said the Sanders proposal. “But it is working for big agribusiness corporations that are extracting our rural resources for profit. For far too long, government farm policies have incentivized a ‘get big or get out’ approach to agriculture.” The position paper said “fundamental change in America’s agricultural and rural policies is no longer just an option; it’s an absolute necessity” to help family-size farms, assure vibrant rural towns and reduce hunger.
Sanders said he would make food supply security a national security issue, impose country-of-origin labeling for meat, limit foreign ownership of farmland, aid new and beginning farmers, and boost rural economic development.
“We need to incentivize farming systems that help farmers both mitigate climate change and build resilience to its impacts,” said Sanders, who also supported stronger enforcement of pollution laws on factory farms.
To read the position paper, “Revitalizing rural America,” click here.