America’s family farmers increasingly are out-muscled by large agribusinesses in trying to make a living, said the think tank Center for American Progress on Tuesday. It called on Congress to create an Independent Farmer Protection Bureau with offices nationwide to even the fight by enforcing antitrust laws and blocking anti-competitive mergers in the food and agriculture sector.
“Monopoly power is holding down the earnings of America’s farmers,” said Andy Green, economic policy director for the nonpartisan cenonter, in releasing the report, “A fair deal for farmers.” CAP describes itself as an expert of progressive ideas for effective government and supporting “the common good over the narrow self-interest.”
The farmer protection bureau, to be housed at USDA with guaranteed funding, would be a dramatic expansion of federal oversight of food and agriculture, if approved. Farm activists have complained for years of high-handed treatment by agribusiness, whether in unfair contracts to produce livestock, rules against repairing their own equipment or unduly high prices for seed.
President Roger Johnson of the National Farmers Union said the report “confirms what family farmers and ranchers have known for some time: This level of corporate consolidation across the food and agricultural sectors is unprecedented and unchecked. It has resulted in higher input costs, less innovation, and fewer choices for food producers, and the recent wave of mega-mergers has just made matters worse. We are long overdue for policies that would level the playing field by ensuring fair and competitive agricultural markets.”
As part of their campaigns for the Democratic nomination for president, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders advocate tougher enforcement of fair-play laws in the face of consolidation among farm suppliers, such as seed, chemical and equipment companies, and the mammoth processors who dominate the grain and livestock markets. Like CAP, they suggest the government should break up existing massive agribusinesses.
“We are stuck in the middle,” said Joe Maxwell, executive director of the Organization for Competitive Markets, a farm and ranch group calling for vigorous antitrust enforcement. “Corporate consolidation in agriculture is out of control.”
In CAP’s vision, the farmer protection bureau would be the agent to carry out initiatives such as a moratorium on agribusiness mergers and the review—and possible reversal—of past mergers, such as Dow-DuPont and Monsanto-Bayer. It also “would be the primary oversight and investigatory body of the federal government dedicated to American farmers’ economic independence and competitive welfare.” During a teleconference, Green said the bureau would be a larger and more powerful version of a regulatory agency broken up by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in 2017, the Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration.
In addition to enforcing fair-marketing laws for agriculture, the farmer bureau would have backup authority to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission “to review and stop merger proposals, as well as enforce all relevant antitrust laws.” Powers would include “right to repair” rules, truth-in-labeling of imported meat and certifying products that meet farmer compensation standards.
CAP urged Congress to pass laws that specify the maximum market share that a company could hold, with special attention to ensuring competition in agricultural markets. The farmer bureau, with regional offices in U.S. agricultural centers, would monitor markets to ensure fair and open prices.
The proposal for the protection bureau was unveiled without congressional sponsorship and on the heels of enactment of the 2018 farm law but with the ferment of a presidential campaign. “This is a new idea. We’re putting it out there,” said Green.