Agriculture
Agriculture is an unexpected confluence of the major themes of this campaign, and the industry is inseparable from so many other issues in our society. You cannot talk about agriculture without talking about health, labor, immigration, monopolies, price fixing, climate change, and the environment. The industry is one of the most vital to our society but is one of the least talked about when it comes to the political world.
So what is the big picture view when it comes to the agricultural industry? We have a system dominated by a handful of companies, who exploit farmers and make it far too expensive to run the type of family farm that used to be universal in the United States. The food produced is making us sicker, not stronger. The environmental effects are giving people various types of diseases including cancer, as well as ruining local water sources. Laborers perform one of the most physically intensive jobs there are, but are woefully under-compensated, underrepresented in unions, and lack the type of protections afforded to most other jobs. Immigrants are exploited in ways that look suspiciously like modern-day slavery, including the hiring of children under the age of 14. Animals in factory farms are kept in horrifying conditions that inevitably lead to disease, prompting the extermination of millions of livestock, which in turn drives up prices. Prices in general are artificially much higher than they should be, which is the subject of a Biden administration investigation into a decades-long price gouging scheme. Labels like “natural” “free-range” or “organic” are slapped on meat and poultry products, but in reality are anything but. Millions of pounds of food go to waste in a country where thousands go hungry and a world where millions starve.
The Tyranny of Big Ag
The biggest issue facing agriculture, for farmers, for consumers, for workers, is the same problem facing the rest of the economy: the consolidation of power into fewer and fewer hands. The largest companies in food and agriculture, names like Cargill, Tyson, Purdue, and Monsanto, use their vast influence to dominate family farms, drive up prices, and spend millions on lobbying and propaganda campaigns to maintain their hold on the industry and prevent any attempts at reform. They have enacted a system in which they collect all the profits, but have passed on all the risks to small farmers, tax-payers, and local communities.
The crown jewel of Big Ag is the factory farm, a disturbing mixture of technology, genetic engineering, and corporate abuse run completely wild. In the past several decades, livestock has been mutated to grow significantly faster, and at a size their physiology was not evolved to support. Chickens for example have been bred to be over 5x bigger than their 1950s predecessors. The result is an animal so large that its legs are unable to support it, its heart and lungs in severe distress, and in pain its entire life. These animals are packed into spaces so tightly that there is no room to walk or roam, even if they could. The lack of regulation enforcement leads to dead, sick, and dying livestock mixed in with the living.
All of that is terrifying and sickening when you watch undercover videos from journalist groups like Vox. But let’s say you’re of the mind that yeah, that’s horrible and all, but they’re being bred to be slaughtered and eaten anyway so what does it matter? And fair point, but there are harms beyond just animal cruelty that prompt a dire need for reform in this area.
For one, severely underregulated factory farms are a breeding ground for disease. If you regularly eat eggs like I do, you probably noticed a couple of years ago when prices skyrocketed to nearly $7. I stopped buying eggs almost entirely at that time because they were too expensive. Maybe you chalked it up as inflation or “supply-chain issues”. But it was mostly a direct result of an outbreak of avian flu. That pandemic and ensuing mass extermination ended up killing tens of millions of chickens, causing a massive increase in the price of eggs. The structure of the factory farm (unclean conditions, stressed and mutated chickens, tightly packed environment) was a significant factor in both the speed and scale of the disease. As a result of the lack of regulation or enforcement, we pay the price at the grocery store.
This is also true when it comes to fire safety. Factory farms are not required to have basic fire standards like sprinklers or even an alarm system, and as a result, millions of livestock have died from fires in the last several years. One particular case occurred in Texas last year where over 18,000 dairy cows died in a fire. The mass deaths of livestock caused by cruel and inefficient methods of raising them is making things worse off for everyone.
Feudalism For The Family Farm
In this new system of agriculture, family farms have been turned into the modern-day equivalent of feudal serfs. In the last several decades, failure to enforce antitrust laws and regulations has led to the consolidation of industries like meatpacking and chemicals that produce products like fertilizer. These giants of agriculture use their control of the market and lack of competition to lock small and mid-sized farms into unfair contracts. The farmers sign because they have no alternatives by which to sell their livestock or crops to, and no alternatives by which to buy cheaper or better equipment, seeds or fertilizers from. These companies can keep squeezing farmers and forcing them further into debt because they have no way by which to fight back against them. Many smaller farms can no longer operate without an additional source of income, and the human cost can be seen in the alarming increase in suicide rates among farmers.
Republicans routinely side with the interests of the agricultural monopolists when it comes to legislation, but Democrats, once the ardent champions of farmers, have too often ignored or abandoned them in the last several decades. Former President Clinton severed that relationship when he signed onto NAFTA and the Freedom to Farm Act in 1996, which paved the way for the monopolies we have today. It’s time to acknowledge that truth, in order to heal the wound that was inflicted and begin anew.
One priority must be to reform the subsidy system. Every year tens of billions of public dollars are given to the agricultural industry. Due to the way in which it is distributed, the largest businesses, the ones that need the aid the least, are given the largest funds. That money is then used to maintain market position, and extract as much cash as possible from family farms and customers. This issue has only gotten worse as these businesses have taken much of the money set aside to transition for climate change, and left the small-time farmer with crumbs.
I would like that changed to a bottom-up approach, where we give the family farm the money needed to implement safety standards, move beyond the factory farm model, pay their workers appropriately, and maintain their independence from predatory corporations. It reminds me of the difference between the 2008 recession response, and the Covid recession response. In 2008, big banks and businesses like the auto industry received bailouts after they tanked the economy, while millions lost their jobs and homes and were given little to nothing. Following the Covid recession, the Biden Administration favored a bottom-up approach, giving us direct checks and investing directly in the economy, giving it a boost and avoiding what could have been a catastrophic depression. The outcome of these two recessions have been starkly different as a result.
Breaking up monopolies is the key to improving the economy as a whole, and it is as vital here as it is in any industry. Without legitimate competition or curbing the abuse of power at the top of society, these problems are never going to truly be solved. Anything else unaccompanied by this policy goal will merely be Band-Aid solutions. That doesn’t mean they are not worth implementing, but this must be the priority. (See also the Agri-stats lawsuit).
Labor Injustice
For those of us who have worked manual labor jobs, we share a certain pride in our work. There is a certain dignity that you feel in the wear and tear on your body, and there is a sense of confidence that is born from it. Although often derided as “unskilled labor”, I can tell you from years of doing this type of work that not everyone can do it day in and day out, and that alone is its own skill. But on a macro level, that labor is still treated as insignificant, the men and women who perform the work even less so.
Workers are subject to weak protections, dangerous conditions, low pay, and are especially vulnerable to circumstances beyond their control. During the labor reforms of the 20th century, farm workers were carved out by Southern politicians in order to keep black farmers in a state of oppression. That system was never truly fixed, and many of the inequities remain ingrained in the law. That needs to be remedied. Issues like not receiving 1.5x overtime pay after working 40 hours needs to be fixed. We are a nation founded on equality, and the way these laws have been written are not in line with that national value.
And as I have iterated in other sections, I cannot say the phrase “all labor has dignity” if I only apply it to certain groups of people, while denying others that same sentiment. The migrant worker is vital to the agricultural industry and our food supply, but is denied basic equality and decency in this country. If a person has a steady job in this country, pays taxes, and is able to support themselves and their family, why not grant them an opportunity to become a citizen? Under the current system, corporate farms abuse undocumented workers so that they can pay them less, ignore labor laws, and have them deported for any reason or no reason at all. The easiest way to prevent the formation of a union is to simply deport the “troublemaker” if they protest against employer abuses. This is a human rights issue, as well as an equality issue, as well as a labor issue. It is immoral, and it cannot stand.
Health and Environmental Harms
The lack of basic regulations on large-scale factory farms has caused issues with drinking water and air quality for decades. Animal waste and farming products like synthetic fertilizers contaminate drinking water, as well as crops, which then end up poisoning millions every year. When the EPA was first established in the 70s, one of its explicit priorities was to enforce factory farm compliance with the Clean Water Act (later combined with the Clean Air Act). Due to heavy lobbying from the Ag conglomerates as well as a lack of political courage, enforcement has been intentionally weak. Stepping up enforcement as well as providing the appropriate agencies with additional resources will lead to a healthier society as a whole. Additionally, new laws concerning emissions transparency will help us better assess and combat the climate impact of agriculture.
The cost of implementing these life-saving standards should not fall upon overburdened farmers either. The main focus of these type of regulations is on protecting the life and health of our people, the integrity of our environment that we rely on to live, and preventing unintentional harm. Nobody should go bankrupt or have to give up their farm because of that. With a reformed subsidy system, we can implement new standards without sacrificing these goals.
Policy List
- Increased transparency around pollution, emissions, and environmental impacts
- Reforming the subsidy system from the bottom up, meaning farmers receive the greatest assistance rather than giving handouts to the largest businesses. Incentives should also favor diversified farming over monoculture, healthier foods, and helping smaller farms implement safety and environmental standards
- Raising farm labor standards to be on par with the rest of the economy (1.5x overtime pay for 40+ hoursโฆ)
- Make it easier for farm workers to form unions (PRO Act)
- Breaking up the largest agricultural companies and preventing consolidation in the future
- National right-to-repair law that explicitly covers farm equipment
- Ending food waste on and off the farm, incentivizing its use to end local and global hunger
- Increased research into potential harms caused by chemicals used in farming
- Increased regulation enforcement of environmental, climate, labor, and antitrust standards
Essential Articles
Big-Ag vs the Family Farm
https://prospect.org/power/2023-05-24-how-washington-bargained-away-rural-america/
Poultry
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23963820/bird-flu-surge-us-ventilation-shutdown-veterinarians
Waste
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22890292/food-waste-meat-dairy-eggs-milk-animal-welfare
Antibiotics
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/1/8/23542789/big-meat-antibiotics-resistance-fda
Lobbying
Factory Farms
The Cost of Failing to Regulate