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The Editorsâ Desk
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In this issue of the Deep Dish, we take a food-first look at the election, investigating the issues dominating our newsrooms and kitchen tablesâand outlining whatâs at stake as November draws closer.
We examine the particularly heated topic of immigration, exploring protective policies that are at riskâand what could happen to the people we depend on to pick, pack, and process our food. Our feature on food prices offers a deep analysis of what, exactly, elected officials can do to bring prices down. As climate change increasingly wreaks havoc on the planet, we lay out the candidatesâ approaches and solutions. We also detail how corporate farming harms actual farmersâand how the outcome of the election might impact their welfare.
And, we scrutinize AcreTrader, a farm real-estate investment platform that counts vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance among its investors; our reporting suggests we need to pay attention to whoâs buying farmland in America right now, and why.
Thank you for reading, for continuing to be a Civil Eats member, and for joining us in welcoming our wider readership after we removed our paywall earlier this month. Your support is invaluable. If you'd like to increase that support, you can make a tax-deductible donation by clicking the button below.
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~ The Civil Eats Editors
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Photo credit: Hill Street Studios, Getty Images
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Whatâs at Stake for Immigrant Food Workers in the 2024 Election
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BY LISA HELD
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In her five years as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Labor, Shelly Anand litigated cases against companies violating workplace safety protections, including in the food industry. Then, at the end of 2020, Anand helped launch Sur Legal, a worker-rights nonprofit focused on the Deep Southâso she was well-positioned to help when a liquid nitrogen leak in January 2021 killed six workers at Foundation Food Group in Gainesville, Georgia.
âWe knew OSHA was going to show up; we knew a lot of different law enforcement agencies were going to show up; and we knew that the workers were going to be undocumented, intimidated, and terrified,â she said.
Sur Legal hosted a Facebook Live gathering to educate workers on their rights and began talking directly to individuals who worked at the plant, many of whom had witnessed the incident and were now traumatized. In the end, Anand and her colleagues were able to help about two dozen workers from the plant access what she calls a âlife-changingâ pathway: They were temporarily granted protected status so that they could help federal investigators identify conditions that might have contributed to the incidentâwhich ultimately represented violations of the law.
In the past, federal agencies have occasionally granted what they call âdeferred action for labor disputesâ at their own discretion. However, in January 2023, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) formalized the process for the first time to encourage undocumented workers, who might otherwise stay silent due to fear of deportation, to report violations of labor laws on the job.
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âWe knew a lot of different law enforcement agencies were going to show up, and we knew that the workers were going to be undocumented, intimidated,
and terrified.â
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âIt came out of DHS, but we look at it as a labor and a worker-rights policy,â said Jessie Hahn, a senior labor and employment policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center (NILC). âItâs very much based on the perspective that the Biden administration has about how best to enforce labor
and employment laws and what is going to facilitate that.â
Between January 2023 and August 2024, according to the DHS, more than 6,000 workersâmany working in the food systemâhave been granted this temporary protection, which can last up to four years. They include the Georgia poultry workers, guest workers picking strawberries in Florida fields, and tortilla factory workers in Chicago, among others.
However, as the presidential election approaches, itâs one of several immigration policies that are at riskâand that would reshape the legal landscape for food and farm workers.
Both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have used strong rhetoric about stemming the influx of new immigrants at the U.S.âMexico border. But how they might treat the immigrant workforce that powers Americaâs fruit and vegetable harvests, meatpacking and food processing plants, and restaurant kitchensâa large percentage of which is undocumentedâis more complicated.
Harris is currently serving in what some experts say has been the most hardline Democratic administration on border policy in modern history, especially since President Joe Bidenâs June executive order limiting asylum claims. As vice president, Harris was specifically tasked with addressing the root causes of migration in origin countries.
During her years as a district attorney and then as the attorney general of California, her record was nuanced. She was tough on immigrants when they committed crimes, but expressed support for those who did not. Throughout, she has specifically defended the labor rights of immigrant workers, including introducing pro-farmworker legislation, and has been endorsed by multiple labor groups.
The Trump administrationâand the 2024 Trump campaignâhave taken a harder line on immigration and immigrants living in the U.S. In 2017, Trump implemented a âzero toleranceâ border policy for families at the border and ended the deferred action policy, which previously gave the children of immigrants, called âDreamers,â a path to citizenship. (Harris, a senator at the time, supported the Dreamers.) In addition,
the second bullet point in the 2024 Republican Party Platform is to âcarry out the largest deportation operation in American history,â with a goal of expelling millions of immigrants. During the recent presidential debate, Trump repeatedly demonized immigrants, using sweeping generalizations filled with misinformation about crime. (Research shows immigrants do not commit crimes at higher rates than U.S.-born Americans.) âWe have to get âem out,â
he said. âWe have to get âem out fast.â
People close to the issue told Civil Eats that, given the unspoken reality of how deeply farms and food businesses rely on undocumented workers, theyâre more worried about worker abuse increasing under Trumpâs leadership than about mass deportations.
âI think they want people to be scared,â Antonio De Loera-Brust, communications director for the United Farm Workers (UFW), said of the deportation threats. âTheyâre going to push [undocumented workers] more into the shadows, where theyâre more vulnerable and exploitable.â
Empowering Immigrants to Report Labor Abuses
On the same day that she announced her candidacy for president, Harris received an enthusiastic endorsement from UFW. Teresa Romero, the president of UFW, called Biden âthe greatest friend the United Farm Workers has had in the Oval Officeâ and said she expected Harris âto continue the transformative work of the Biden-Harris administration.â
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Photo credit: Maguey Images
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Deferred action is one piece of that work UFW has embraced; its attorneys and organizers have been working with the state of California to inform farmworkers of the option and assist them with the application. To date, De Loera-Brust said UFW has helped more than 100 fieldworkers apply.
To be eligible, workers must get a letter called a âstatement of interestâ from a labor or employment agency. For example, if fieldworkers have reported safety violations to Cal/OSHA, Californiaâs worker safety and health agency, Cal/OSHA must then send a letter to DHS indicating interest in launching an investigation before DHS will grant deferred action status. Groups like UFW often help facilitate that process.
Once they are granted the status, workers may be asked to provide information on labor violations theyâve experienced or witnessed. In Gainesville, for example, the nitrogen leak resulted in two federal investigations into what caused the incident and its fatalities.
âSeveral of these workers came forward to the Department of Justice, which has never been an immigrant-friendly agency, so that was 10 times scarier for them,â Anand said. âBut they want to do everything they can to hold folks accountable for those deaths.â
As a result, OSHA investigators concluded Foundation Food Group and three affiliated companies âfailed to implement any of the safety procedures necessary to prevent the nitrogen leak, or to equip workers responding to it with the knowledge and equipment that could have saved their lives.â The agency cited the companies for nearly $1 million in fines and a total of 59 violations. Foundation Food Group was acquired by
another chicken processor, Gold Creek Foods, in September 2021.
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âSeveral of these workers came forward to the Department of Justice, which has never been an immigrant-friendly agency . . . but they want to do everything they can to hold folks accountable for those deaths.â
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In a later, more detailed report produced by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board that workers also helped with, investigators again found the deaths had been âcompletely preventable.â
While it was too late to save the workers who died, one of the affiliated companies that leased the faulty equipment said it developed new safety protocols as a result of the report, and the investigators recommended OSHA issue a new national standard to address the hazards of liquid nitrogen, with specific emphasis on poultry processing and food manufacturing.
Itâs an example of how the deferred action policyâs impact extends far beyond the individuals who receive the status, Hahn said. âWe are trying to address the chilling effect that occurs in a workplace when people are too afraid to speak up about labor violations,â she said. âWhen those workers feel protected because theyâve received deferred action, then everyone in the workplace benefits.â In other words, supporters believe the policy makes workplaces safer for all Americans, immigrant or otherwise.
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Participants at a clinic Sur Legal co-hosted with the Georgia Asylum and Immigration Network (GAIN) and Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM).
(Photo courtesy of Sur Legal)
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At Centro de Los Derechos del Migrante (CDM), which has headquarters in both Maryland and Mexico, staff members have been documenting the abuse of migrants who come to the U.S. through guestworker programs to work in agriculture and food processing for nearly two decades. Lucy Thames,
CDMâs outreach project manager, said the deferred action process has also benefited those workers over the past year.
One challenge for workers in the H-2A program, which is for farms, and the H-2B program, which is for food processing, is that their legal status in the country is tied to their employer, making it difficult for them to report or escape abusive situations. But
when guestworkers are granted deferred action, Thames explained, they are able to seek employment with any U.S. employer. âTheyâre able to leave a situation in which their rights arenât being respected and identify an employer who might be a better fit for them,âshe said.
Thatâs significant because in recent years, as farms have struggled to find enough workers to plant carrots and harvest tomatoes, the H2-A program especially has ballooned in size. CDM has been particularly focused on helping shape a recent Biden administration rule to expand protections for workers in that program.
Thames said the new rule contains many provisions CDM has advocated for, including allowing protection from being fired without cause, banning retaliation against workers who engage in union organizing, establishing transportation safety requirements, and ensuring support and advocacy organizations are able to visit workers in employer-provided housing.
The Post-Election View
Advocates expect Harris to support the H-2A rule changes, since they came out of the Biden administration. As a senator, she also introduced a bill that would have extended minimum wage and overtime protections to farmworkers.
On the other side, while Trump has not mentioned this H-2A rule since it was proposed, Republican lawmakers have been pushing back on many of its provisions. At the end of August, a federal judge sided with 17 Republican-led states in a lawsuit brought against the Department of Labor, blocking the Biden administration from implementing the provisions.
And at the end of Trumpâs presidency, his administration published a different H-2A rule, which drew strong opposition from farm labor groups because it weakened worker protections. At the time, his Department of Labor said the rule would âstreamline and simplify the H-2A application process, strengthen protections for U.S. and foreign workers, and ease unnecessary burdens on employers.â
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The political ping-pong over the H-2A rules shows how, since immigration is so politicized, even small changes to labor policies that primarily impact immigrant workers are often the result of years of back-and-forth that span multiple presidential administrations.
âA lot of the developments that weâre seeing are many, many years in the making,â Thames said. âI think thatâs often what weâve seen in the farmworker movement. Itâs decades of work done by advocates and workers themselves.â
Throughout that time, regardless of whoâs in charge in D.C., food production in the U.S. has depended on immigrant workers. Multiple farmers who spoke to Civil Eats laughed at the idea of finding enough U.S. citizens to harvest kale and squash.
One organic vegetable farmer said she pays nearly $17 an hour to her H-2A workers but has still never had a domestic worker apply. (The law requires farmers to post the jobs for U.S. workers before bringing in guestworkers.) Originally, she relied on mostly undocumented workers living in the U.S., but recently has had to bring in more temporary guestworkers on H-2A visas. Sheâs hoping for a more long-term solution that recognizes the contributions of the immigrants who have powered her farmâsome for more than a decadeâand that would allow them to live and work without fear.
But with election rhetoric focused on border security and the recent failure of even the most middle-of-the-road legislation, unions and immigrant rights groups are zeroing in on the things that make a difference day-to-day.
Deferred action is âa Band-Aid on a big problem,â said Sur Legalâs Anand, since it doesnât do anything to resolve longstanding questions around whether the countryâs millions of immigrant food workers should be granted long-term legal status. But it has had a real impact on the Gainesville workersâ lives. âSome of these workers have left the poultry industry and found better paying, safer jobs, and they feel really empowered,â Anand said. âNow, they're speaking up.â
She added, âwe donât know whatâs going to happen with this program, but by and large, most of our folks that weâve worked with are like, âIf it gives me a few years of peace, of being able to be safe and to live my life without fear, Iâll do it.ââ
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Photo credit: Spencer Platt, Getty Images
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Can Lawmakers Really Tackle High Food Costs?
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BY NICK BOWLIN
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In mid-August, Vice President Kamala Harris announced that, if elected to the White House in November, she would take substantive steps to limit the money Americans spend on groceries. Her campaign called it the âfirst-ever federal ban on corporate price-gouging.â
In a subsequent speech, Harris blamed high grocery prices on large, consolidated food companies, which have raked in record profits, but offered few further details about what a price-gouging ban might entail. The campaign then added a policy platform to its website, repeating the pledge to install a national price gouging ban.
âAs President, she will direct her Administration to crack down on anti-competitive practices that let big corporations jack up prices and undermine the competition,â the website states.
Republicans and pro-business groups pushed back immediately after the announcement. The National Grocers Association called the proposal a âsolution in search of a problem,â while former President Donald Trump posted on social media about âSoviet styleâ price caps.
âIf you think things are expensive now, they will get 100 times WORSE if Kamala gets four years as President,â Trump wrote on Truth Social. The former president has also mentioned high food prices repeatedly in recent weeks; he informed Elon Musk, in an interview on X, that bacon prices are âfour to five timesâ more expensive than they were a few years ago.
While Trumpâs statement about bacon is false, thereâs no question that groceries have become increasingly expensive. Food prices ballooned by 25 percent between 2019 and 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), outstripping increases in other important spending categories
like housing and medical costs.
And itâs clear that voters are not only taking notice of the high prices, but also increasingly see corporate profits and consolidation as part of the cause. In recent polling focused on voters in seven swing states, 56 percent said food was the hardest essential good to pay for. And 61 percent of respondents, including 63 percent of independents, blamed across-the-board high prices on corporate greed.
Few other goods and services are as omnipresent as food purchases, and food prices are often where everyday Americans feel economic shifts most immediately.
âItâs the most frequent purchase most households make,â said Dawn Thilmany, an agriculture and resource economics professor at Colorado State University. âYou eat three times a day. You probably shop at least a couple times a week. Thereâs almost nothing else like it in our economy.â
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â[Food is] the most frequent purchase most households make. You probably shop at least a couple times a week. Thereâs almost nothing else like it in
our economy.â
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In a tight presidential election, where nearly one in five voters is still undecided, food prices could be a key issue, but what can elected officials actually do to bring them down?
Consolidation and âGreedflationâ
Post-COVID trips to the grocery store have hit American wallets hard; there is little disagreement on this. But in an increasingly consolidated food industry, just exactly how corporate profits contribute is an ongoing debate.
Supply chain disruptions, resulting shortages, and inflation have contributed to high food prices in recent years. Economists note that other factors, like increases in the minimum wage across the country, ballooning energy costsâinflated by the war in Ukraineâand changing consumer behavior have likely played a role. Some pandemic-era habits, like the newfound love for baking bread, and cooking at home in general, seem to have stuck, according to Thilmany. âEven controlling for inflation, we found that people are seemingly allocating a higher share of their budget to food spending,â she said.
But even as inflation has slackened in the past year, prices remain high, and some economists and progressive Democrats argue that large corporations have taken advantage of the recent economic disruptions to keep prices artificially highâa tactic known as âgreedflation.â
A recent study by the Groundwork Collaborative found that âcorporate profits drove 53 percent of inflation during the second and third quarters of 2023,â and more than a third of the inflation since the start of pandemicâvastly outstripping the price growth attributable to corporate profits in recent decades. Corporations can do this, according to the report, thanks to decades of corporate consolidation, resulting in a lack of competition.
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Photo credit: Hanson Lu, Unsplash
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âFrom the fertilizer industry to the feed production industry to the grocery retail industry, all along this food chain, you have deeply concentrated markets with only a few major players,â said Rakeen Mabud, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative, âand that lack of competition means that at every point in the system, these companies donât have to lower their prices.â
Policymakers can curb this by discouraging consolidation and encouraging competition. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), for example, is attempting to block a $25 billion merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons. A merger would allow Kroger to acquire its main rival, and the FTC argued in a hearing in Oregon earlier this year that the consolidation would be anti-competitive and push costs onto consumers.
Details from the hearing, meanwhile, show that food pricing isnât all driven by inflation. In a March email to other company executives, Andy Groff, Krogerâs senior director for pricing, seemed to confirm that the grocery chain had raised its prices to higher levels than required by inflationary conditions. âOn milk and eggs, retail inflation has been significantly higher than cost inflation,â Groff wrote. In response to questions from FTC lawyers about the email, Groff said that Kroger attempts to âpass through our inflation to consumers.â He also acknowledged that Kroger was
able to raise prices in areas where it faced little competition without seeing a drop in sales.
Under Trump, consolidated corporations generally benefited. The Trump administration dissolved the USDA agency tasked with regulating anti-competitive practices in the livestock, poultry, meat, grain, and oilseed industries.
The Biden administration made some attempts to rein in consolidation. In 2022, for example, President Joe Biden signed an executive order aimed at creating more competitive practices, especially in meat and poultry supply chains. Harrisâs plans to go after âprice gougingâ fall in line with these initiatives.
The problem is deeply embedded in the U.S. food system, and it continues to have real impacts. In cities or regions with just a few large food distributors, the consumer costs of consolidation can be stark: USDA data from June shows that, in a few major Midwestern cities with notably scant competition in the dairy distribution supply chain, consumers were paying almost $1 more per gallon of milk, according to The Milkweed, a dairy industry newsletter.
Kansas City, for example, has virtually no competition among its milk producers. One distributor, Hiland Dairy, a joint venture between two large-scale dairy cooperatives, dominates the area. Over the past two years, Kansas City has experienced the highest milk prices among 30 major cities, according to The Milkweed. In Chicago, milk prices increased in 2023, even as raw milk costs declined for the two major milk distributors that dominate the local market.
âThe food industry is just full of cartels,â said Austin Frerick, author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of Americaâs Food Industry. âAnd thatâs what cartels do. They gouge.â
Extreme concentration can be seen everywhere in the food industry. Walmart sells approximately one in three grocery items nationwideâand more than half the groceries in dozens of regional markets. Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and National Beef buy and process 85 percent of beef in the U.S. JBS, the largest meatpacker in the world, has agreed to multiple settlements in recent years related to bribery and price-fixing.
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âThe food industry is just full of cartels. And thatâs what cartels do. They gouge.â
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Similarly, in the egg industry, a few large corporate entities hoard the market; Cal-Maine alone controls about 20
percent of egg production in the U.S. This concentration allowed companies to keep egg prices high in 2022 and 2023, after supply chain issues and an avian flu outbreak cut into supply, according to Senator Elizabeth Warrenâs (D-Massachusetts) office. Cal-Maine, with no reported avian flu cases in its operations, saw profits increase by 65 percent in late 2022.
âIn times of crisis like we saw over the course of the pandemic and over this inflationary period, these companies, in many cases, have added to the prices that consumers or downstream purchasers are paying, because they can, because thereâs no competition to put them down,â Mabud of Groundwork Collaborative said.
Other Legal Tools to Address Excess Prices
In 2020, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Hillandale, one of the nationâs largest egg producers, alleging that the company used the pandemic to charge excess prices to consumers. More recently, she went after other corporations for gouging customers on the price of baby formula. To do this, James used a New York law that bans price gouging.
It is one of 38 states with similar laws on the books, including red states like Texas and Tennessee. In Tennessee, two Nashville-based state lawmakersâSen. Charlane Oliver and Rep. Aftyn Behnârecently urged the state attorney general to join a multi-state collaboration task force with the USDA to address anti-competitive actions in the food industry.
âHigh prices at the grocery store have weighed heavily on Tennessee families, and they deserve to know that their state government is taking every possible step to ensure fairness in the marketplace,â Oliver said in a statement.
In some states, price hikes are illegal beyond a certain percentage increase. Others use standards like âgrossly excessiveâ to evaluate the legality of sudden cost raises. In her recently released platform, Harris said that national price gouging legislation would build on the existing state laws. However, the patchwork nature of state price-gouging laws currently makes this challenging, given the diffuse nature of supply chains and distribution networks.
A bill introduced earlier this year by Senator Warren offers a glimpse of what legislative action might look like at the federal level. Warrenâs bill would codify price gouging as an âunfair and deceptiveâ practice under federal law, allowing both the federal government and state attorney generals to tackle exploitative pricing nationwide.
The law would also target large corporations, those with at least $100 million in revenue. And during periods of severe stock-market shock, as during COVID or, say, during extreme natural disasters, the bill would require large, publicly traded companies to disclose extra information to the SEC, especially the cost of goods sold, gross margins, and pricing strategies.
This proposal and others would require an empowered FTC, one willing to use existing antitrust law and any new legislation to target large corporate entities. During the Biden administration, FTC Chair Lina Khan has aggressively used antitrust law to target monopolies and consolidation, including the AlbertsonsâKroger merger. Since announcing her candidacy, Harris has been pressured by populist economists and the left wing of the Democratic party to keep Khan, while billionaire donors have urged Harris to get rid of her, seeking a more business-friendly administration.
Government leaders have other tools at their disposal as well. The American Prospect recently detailed a variety of anti-price gouging tactics, ranging from a vigorous corporate tax regime and expanded enforcement to counter âunfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practicesââto a greater array of public, not-for-profit institutions like publicly owned grocery stores and credit unions.
Though details remain scant, Harrisâs announcement against price gouging could have teeth. Her speeches to date suggest support for legislation similar to Warrenâs bill, antitrust efforts against large corporationsâincluding civil penaltiesâand possible federal support for small businesses. Trump, too, has said heâll tackle inflation, though policy details are minimal.
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âIâm heartened by the focus on the high cost of groceries because itâs emblematic of a broader problem in our economyâcorporations have too much power and people have too little power.â
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Any solution will need to also factor in the impact that prices have on farmers. When commodity prices are low, or supply is too high, for example, a power dynamic widens, benefiting brokers in the middle and hurting farmers. Supply management, where farmers grow whatâs needed and are paid fairly in the process, is one policy solution.
But those are long-term issues likely far from most votersâ minds. What many of them are thinking about now is the cost of food.
For Mabud, the fact that Harrisâ first big economic announcement focuses on food prices is grounds for hopeâespecially when combined with a more vigorous FTC and broader conversations about policy tools to take on monopolies.
âConcentration is not just a theoretical concept,â she said. âItâs actually harming people, full stop.â
âThe reason Iâm heartened by the focus on the high cost of groceries,â Mabud went on, âis because itâs really emblematic of a broader problem in our economyâwhich is that corporations have too much power and people have too little power.â
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Where Do the Candidates Stand on Climateâand How Will That Impact Food and Agriculture?
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BY CHRISTINA COOKE
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As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump campaign for the November election, farmers across the U.S. are grappling with extreme and unprecedented weather: blistering heat waves, severe drought, explosive wildfires, devastating storms, and deadly floods. Climate policies have not been a huge point of discussion on the campaign trail, but the next presidentâs approach to the changing climate will have massive implications, affecting everything from biodiversity to human migration to farmersâ ability to produce food.
The U.N.âs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sounded a final alarm for the planet in March 2023. The report warns that as the climate warms and farmers face increasing challenges, food insecurity and supply instability will rise. âThere is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all,â the authors said.
Details on the presidential candidatesâ specific climate policies remain scant, but their track records and party platforms point to the sort of approach each might take if elected. When it comes to energy production, which is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, as well as the regulations that shape energy and a number of other climate-related policies, the two candidatesâ opposing approaches have wildly different
implications for the climateâand the stability of the food system.
The 2024 Democratic platform both acknowledges the climate crisis as âan existential threat to future generationsâ and reflects that priority with robust support for clean energy and climate-friendly regulation. Meanwhile, Trump has called climate change a hoax and promised to achieve âenergy dominanceâ while undoing the Democratsâ progress toward clean energy.
Track Records on Climate
President Joe Bidenâs administration has weathered mixed reviews on climate. For the past six years, the U.S. has produced more crude oil than any other country, and the Biden administration approved thousands of permits for drilling and fracking on federal
land. Harris called for a ban on fracking in 2019, but she has since changed her position.
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A U.S. fracking operation outside a residential community.
(Photo credit: Topher Donahue, Getty Images)
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Still, the Biden administration set the goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and made unprecedented investments in renewable energy. The $1.6 trillion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)âwhich includes $369 billion in clean energy tax credits and funding for climate and clean energy programsâis the most aggressive piece of climate legislation in U.S. history. Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass it.
Additionally, under Biden and Harris, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized strong pollution standards for cars and fossil fuel-fired power plants.
Though Harris has not revealed specifics about her climate agenda this year, her campaign has said she plans to build on Bidenâs climate legacy. Some look at her Climate Plan for the People, which she unveiled during her run in the 2020 primaries, as an
indication of where her priorities might lie. The plan called for a $10 trillion investment in climate action over the next decade.
In her previous roles, Harris has held big polluters to account and supported bold climate action, often framing the crisis through the lens of environmental justice. As Californiaâs attorney general, she sued the Obama administration to stop offshore fracking and amassed $50 million in settlements from lawsuits against fossil-fuel companies. And as a U.S. senator, in 2019, she co-sponsored the Green New Deal, a plan to transition the country to clean energy.
The Biden-Harris administration has also cracked down on corporate consolidation, common in the food system. Some contend that consolidated power enables companies to successfully lobby against environmental regulation and see reining in this power as a vital step in pursuing climate-friendly policies. Biden signed an executive order in July 2021 to promote competition in the U.S. economy, including the meat industry.
While Harrisâ running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, supported the creation of the now-defunct Keystone XL pipeline project, he generally has an extremely climate-friendly record. Last year, he signed a law that requires state power plants to transition
to 100 percent climate-friendly energy by 2040, eliminating the use of gas and coal. And during the 2023 legislative session, he supported state Democrats in passing around 40 other climate-friendly initiatives.
Trump, on the other hand, denies the threat of climate change and makes inaccurate claims about sea level rise. In 2017, he withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Deal, the pre-eminent international agreement to stave off climate change. (Biden rejoined the agreement on his first day in office.)
As president, Trump weakened the agencies responsible for protecting the environment, like the EPA, and rolled back more than 100 environmental rules. He went after corporate power during his 2016 campaign, promising to take on Wall Street and pharmaceutical companies, but his position changed quickly once he was in office.
Trumpâs running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), has acknowledged the problem of climate change in the past, but changed his views as he sought Trumpâs support in a bid for Senate in 2022. Since then, Vance has denied the role of humans in driving climate change, championed the oil and gas industries, and opposed the development of alternative energy sources.
The Democrats Look Forward: Clean Energy and Regulation
While Harris emphasized her support of the oil and gas industry during the presidential debate this week, the 2024 Democratic platform calls for a continuation of the âclean energy boomâ the Biden-Harris administration launched with the IRA. Recognizing that agriculture produces 10 percent of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the platform sets forth the goal of making âour farm sector the worldâs first to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.â
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Sheep graze under solar panels.
(Photo CC-licensed by AgriSolar Clearinghouse)
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The platform also supports using federal agencies to set and enforce regulations that protect the environment and combat climate change. In addition to regulating water and air pollution and making polluters pay, Democrats plan to use federal agencies to encourage climate-smart investmentâlike farming
practices that sequester carbon. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), for example, is paying farmers to adopt climate-smart practices such as reducing tillage and planting cover crops with the help of IRA funding. According to the platform, more than 80,000 farms covering 75 million acres have adopted these practices already.
Harris has not detailed where she stands on breaking up corporate power, though her economic policy includes blocking unfair mergers and a federal ban on grocery-store price gouging.
The Republican Plan: Fossil Fuels and Deregulation
Trump plans to pursue an agenda that is friendly to the fossil-fuel industry. His support for oil and gas companies, which he provided with $25 billion in tax benefits during his presidency, would likely continue. âUnder President Trump, the U.S. became the Number One Producer of Oil and Natural Gas in the World,â the 2024 GOP Platform says.
Project 2025, the roadmap for a conservative presidency developed by the Heritage Foundation, also expresses a commitment to âunleashing all of Americaâs energy resources.â (While Trump has tried to distance himself from the project, many of its authors are his former advisers and shaped policies in his previous term.)
Trump is expected to double down on his deregulatory agenda during a second term. The former president has said he plans to dismantle the IRA by repealing sections that promote electric vehicles and offshore wind projects. He has also proposed eliminating key
regulations for liquefied natural gas. In April, the former president suggested to oil executives that if they contributed $1 billion to his campaign, he would roll back Biden-Harris environmental regulations.
Project 2025 spells out similar deregulatory plans. It calls for demolishing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service, which it describes as âthe main drivers of climate change alarm,â and would shrink the EPAâs power.
The conservative plan criticizes the Biden-Harris USDA for encouraging âclimate-smart agricultural practicesâ and says the next administration should âdenounce efforts to place ancillary issues like climate change ahead of food productivity and affordability.â Along those lines, it recommends eliminating conservation programs like the USDAâs Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers to stop farming on low-quality pieces of land to, among other things, help hold carbon.
On the corporate power front, Trump suggested to oil executive donors at a fundraising event in May that if elected president, he would fast-track their merger deals with the Federal Trade Commission.
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It should be noted that implementing any of the candidatesâ plans would require Congressional approval, which may or may not be achievable, depending on the configuration of the House and Senate after the election.
Support for the Candidates
As of early September, agribusiness interests had donated $9.9 million to the 2024 Trump campaign and only $2.7 million to Harris.
âPresident Trump has a strong record of advancing policies to strengthen American agriculture,â Alabama FarmPAC president Jimmy Parnell told the conservative Alabama news website 1819 News. âHis administration reduced burdensome regulations, held trade partners accountable, lowered energy costs, and invested in rural economic development.â
Meanwhile, the League of Conservation Voters, the Sierra Club, the Sunrise Movement, and numerous other climate-focused groups have endorsed Harris for president. And in August, a group of climate organizations announced a $55 million ad campaign in her support.
âKamala Harrisâs record provides a stark contrast with Donald Trump and the far-right, pro-polluter Project 2025,â said Wenonah Hauter, founder and executive director of Food and Water Action, in a statement. Harrisâ positions do not yet go far enough, Hauter said. âBut with a President Harris, we will have a chance to build the political power to move the bold climate initiatives we need.â
Civil Eats will publish an extended version of this analysis on our website in the coming days.
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Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, farmland for sale.
(Photo credit: ablokhin, Getty Images)
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What is AcreTrader, and Why Did J.D. Vance Invest in Helping Financiers Buy Farmland?
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BY GREY MORAN
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Some of the most pristine farmland in California can be yours, at least by proxy, in just a matter of minutes. Thatâs the promise that AcreTrader, a company with the mission of simplifying investing in valuable U.S. farmland, makes to prospective financiers.
Its current offerings include 83 acres of almond trees in the San Joaquin Valley, advertised as âan opportunity to invest in a water-secure almond orchard in the worldâs most productive almond-producing region.â This property boasts of senior water rights on the Kings River, suggesting that the land will continue to turn a profit long into the futureâa dream of farmers and investors alike.
AcreTrader is just one of many companies launched in the past decade that facilitate the sale of farmland, which has increasingly become a staple in investor portfolios, including that of vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio.
Vance invested up to $65,000 in private investments in AcreTrader during his stint as a venture capitalist, according to his 2022 financial disclosure to the Senate ethics committee. The investment firm Narya Capitalâwhich Vance launched in 2020 with backing from PayPal co-founder Peter Thielâwas a vehicle for these investments, and a key backer in early funding rounds of the farmland startup. And while Vance is no
longer listed as a partner at Narya Capital, according to his 2023 financial disclosure, he appears to still be an investor in the firmâor more technically, multiple legal entities with names including Narya.
âThereâs no indication that Vance has divested from AcreTrader, and thereâs every indication that that investment remains in place,â said Lisa Graves, the executive director of True North Research, an investigative research group. She points to how Vance sold off his stock in âNarya Capital Management LLCâ in 2023, but thatâs not the same as the (albeit similarly named) investment vehicles used
to invest in AcreTrader.
In a social media post, Sarah Taber, a farm and food systems strategist and the Democratic candidate for North Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture, describes AcreTrader as âlike Uber for buying U.S. farmland.â Like Uber, AcreTrader makes it easier for more buyers to gain quick access to an ordinarily expensive asset. âAnd whoâs one of its key investors, profiting off of every sale?â Taber asks. âJ.D. Vance.â
For Taber, Vanceâs large investment portfolioâin AcreTrader and a slew of other opaque startup companiesâraises questions about conflicts of interest and the mixing of venture capitalist and political pursuits. Vanceâs 2022 portfolio also included AppHarvest, the start-up company that promised to revolutionize farming and bring good jobs to eastern Kentucky, only to quickly implode.
âThereâs an ethical case for any venture capitalist to disinvest from their interests before running for political office,â said Taber, in an interview with Civil Eats. âWe donât know what heâs incentivized to do."
AcreTrader streamlines the process of investing in valuable farmland across Australia and the U.S.âfrom the flooded rice fields of the Mississippi Delta to the vast tracts of high-yielding corn in the Midwestâby placing the farmland in a limited liability corporation, or LLC.
âYou can then purchase shares in that [LLC] through a simple online process that takes just minutes,â the company explains in a tutorial video for prospective investors. âAcreTrader handles the administrative details for you, and works with experienced farmers to manage the land.â
âItâs just the expansion of the Real Estate Investment Trust [REIT] business model into farmland,â said Taber. âItâs basically like a mutual fund for real estate.â
With the REIT model, instead of buying a single condo, you buy a share in a company that owns 100 or 200 condos. This investment vehicle was established by Congress in the 1960s, opening the doors to large-scale real estate investments for smaller investors. Itâs a model that has enabled real estate hedge funds to buy up large swaths of the housing market, driving up demand and prices. Recently, companies have begun applying a REIT-like model to land.
AcreTrader isnât technically a REIT, but itâs similar in that it enables a wider pool of investors to passively invest in farmland, reaping the benefits of one of the most reliable assets to produce a return. But instead of buying shares in one company, like a REIT, investors buy shares in individual LLCs that own the property.
This ownership model makes it hard to tell who is invested in the farmland and, therefore, more challenging to evaluate ethical conflicts and other risks of this investment, Taber observed. (Vance is listed as an investor in AcreTrader, not the individual LLCs, according to his Senate disclosure forms.)
After a fixed period, typically between five and 10 years, investors sell the land almost inevitably at a higher price than they purchased it, given that farmland appreciates over time. As AcreTraderâs website boasts, âLand is one of the oldest investment classes in existence, which in many cases has produced significant wealth over generations.â On top of their earnings from the sale, investors potentially benefit as well from renting the land to a farmer, without being involved in managing it.
AcreTrader is part of a larger trend of the financialization of farmland. The last two decades have witnessed a sharp uptick in investor interest in farmland as investors, seeking to hedge against inflation and stock market volatility, have turned to it as a reliable bet. Between 2008 and 2023, the amount of farmland purchased by investors increased by a staggering 231 percent.
In recent years, bipartisan political leaders have pushed to curb foreign investments in U.S. farmland, citing the potential for a national security risk. Earlier this week, the Republican-controlled House passed a bill restricting citizens from China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran from purchasing U.S. farmland. But this bill doesnât address the vast tracts of farmland more concentrated in
the hands of U.S. investors than ever before: Bill Gates, The Wonderful Company, and billionaire John Malone are the top owners of U.S. farmland.
This investor-driven farmland âgold rushâ has come with many unintended consequences for agriculture and farmers. It has led to the consolidation of farmland in regions with high-value land, while pricing out the farmers unable to compete with major investors for farmland. This has led land-strapped farmers to either drop out of farming or become tenant farmers, operating farms on rented land.
Surveying more than 10,000 farmers, the National Young Farmers Coalition found that lack of land access is the top reason that farmers stop farming and the biggest obstacle standing in the way of aspiring farmers.
Even when investors seek to keep farmland in operation, rental arrangements can be challenging for farmers, because it gives them less freedom and security over their land, especially if they have a short-term lease. Paul Towers, the executive director of Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF), has observed that leasing (rather than owning) farmland can make it harder for farmers in their network to make long-term investments in their land.
âHow can a farmer make significant investments in their soil health if they donât know if theyâre going to be on that property next year?â said Towers. âWhy would they invest in hedgerows for beneficial insects and pollinators? Why would they develop more water-holding capacity on their farm?â The instability of being a renter can lead farmers to focus on short-term productivity to pay the rent, instead of on long-term climate adaptation or mitigation.
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âHow can a farmer make significant investments in their soil health if they donât know if theyâre going to be on that property next year?â
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AcreTrader promises to be different, however, claiming to partner with farmers in âstewarding landâ and âsupporting livelihoods.â This includes the language of their leases: âWe structure our leases according to industry leading sustainability standards, encompassing specific conditions related to soil fertility, erosion control, groundwater protection, and input management,â states the companyâs website.
Currently, AcreTrader limits these rental partnerships to ârow crop, permanent crop, and timber,â leaving out diversified vegetable operations, the farms that are often engaged in some of the most innovative, climate-friendly practices. These are also the farms that tend to struggle to access crop insurance, lacking the guarantee of a stable income even when crops failâwhich may deter investors.
Some caution against painting all investors with a broad brush, pointing to a potential role for some forms of investors in helping facilitate land access for farmers in some cases.
âI do believe that there is an opportunity for investors to think about how to deploy non-destructive capital to access the purchase of farmland,â said Gaby Pereyra, a farmer and the co-director of the Land Network Program at the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust. She points to Dirt Capital, which works with farmers in financing farmland, including through shared ownership models.
And while itâs hard to fully evaluate AcreTraderâs model, itâs clear that it allows an investor-backed startup to play a role in steering the future of agriculture and the U.S. food system. It begs the question: Should we trust investors like J.D. Vanceâeven the many investors that claim to help farmersâwith this power over the most fertile, water-rich farmland in the U.S.?
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Photo credit: Aberration Films via Getty Images
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Consolidation, Power, and the Fight for Farmer Justice in an Election Year
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BY LISA HELD
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This spring, Minh and Nhu-Hai Ngo were so stressed out by being at home on their farm in Vienna, Georgia, they made plans to visit family in Vietnam. When they spoke to Civil Eats, Nhu-Hai was already there. Minh, a soft-spoken farmer, was getting ready to join her. He sounded defeated.
âI go outside, look at the [chicken] houses, and itâs just empty,â he said. It was the first time in nearly eight years that the houses werenât packed with birds owned by Tyson, a $21 billion company.
Minh started raising chickens in 2016, when he and Nhu-Hai took out a federal loan to purchase a farm with eight long metal barns built for housing poultry. Every few months, Tyson employees dropped off chicks and feed. They came back six weeks later to fetch fattened birds ready for slaughter.
After five years, in 2021, Tyson demanded that Minh install new fans and controllers in the houses, even though the old ones worked just fine, said Nhu-Hai, who handled the finances. So, despite the debt they still had from the initial farm purchase, the couple took out another loan. Less than three years after thatâin October 2023âa Tyson production manager sent a letter with an ominous heading: âRE: Expiration and subsequent non-replacement of Broiler Production Contract.â Tyson was ending its relationship with the Ngos, effective January 26, 2024.
Ever since, Minh and Nhu-Hai have been fretting over how to come up with the money to pay back the bank. They put the farm on the market, but Nhu-Hai said itâs now nearly worthless, without an accompanying contract to grow chickens. (There is little else, after all, that one can do with eight windowless metal barns, each longer than a football field.)
âThey give you just enough to survive every dayâthatâs it,â Minh said, of Tysonâs approach to compensation. âAnd then they make sure you spend any money on the houses.â Tyson did not respond to a request for comment.
For the Ngos, the situation is uniquely and intimately distressing. However, itâs a common story among Americaâs chicken farmers, because companies set up the system to place the risk of capital investments on farmers, while they control pretty much everything else. And as the industry has become more consolidated, their power has grown.
Over the past three decades, under both Democrat and Republican administrations, concentration across the meat industry has accelerated. In 1992, the top four chicken companies controlled 41 percent of the market; today, they control 60 percent. In pork, those
numbers are 43 vs. 67 percent. In beef, 71 vs. 85 percent.
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âThey give you just enough to survive every dayâthatâs it. And then they make sure you spend any money on the houses.â
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Economists predict market abuses are likely to occur when control by the four top players in any sector exceeds 40 percent. âWhat a monopoly does . . . is it uses its market power to raise prices for consumers or to raise prices in a stealthy way by reducing quality,â explained Christopher Leonard, author of The Meat Racket, while moderating a virtual Farm Action event called âJustice for Americaâs Poultry Growersâ in July. âAt the same time, on the other end of the ledger, they suppress what they pay producers . . . and they capture the profits that are in the middle. Itâs a pretty simple playbook.â
Now, as the election approaches, many experts and farmers say the outcome could determine whether the farm economy continues toward consolidation and monopoly, or whetherâif the next administration enacts policies to restore a more competitive marketplaceâit shifts power away from corporations and toward farmers.
Theyâve got good reason: Upon taking office, the Trump administration immediately scrapped rules meant to protect farmers and was generally passive on antitrust enforcement. Meanwhile, shortly after being sworn in, the Biden Administration announced it would tackle consolidation with an executive order on âpromoting competition in the American economy.â The order included a long to-do list for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to, among other goals, âaddress the unfair treatment of farmersâ and a directive for the chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to âaddress the consolidation of industry in many markets across the economy.â
Some farmers and advocates say the Biden administration has delivered on an impressive number of those priorities, while others see its passionate rhetoric as disguising a lack of meaningful progress. Many predict that as president, Vice President Kamala Harris is likely to advance efforts to confront consolidation in meatpacking, but without a formal policy document, itâs hard to know exactly how. Most say that despite Trumpâs populist language and popularity among commodity farmers, his focus on deregulation and actions during his first term point to a future with more power for meatpackers and less for contract farmers.
Industry groups that represent the biggest companies, including the National Chicken Council and the Meat Institute, have repeatedly pushed back on the characterization of consolidation and harms to contract farmers as an issue, calling the Biden
Administrationâs efforts âa solution in search of a problem.â
However, experts like Austin Frerickâauthor of Barons and former co-chair of the Biden campaignâs Agriculture Antitrust Policy Committeeâsay the problem of consolidation and its multiple impacts on Americans represents a real opportunity for candidates. âThe piĂąata is so big, and itâs saying, âHit me, hit me,â especially in meat markets,â he said. For example, recent reports show that some of the largest meat companies including Tyson and JBS USA have used their power to skirt child labor laws and to fix prices, raising the cost of groceries. âSomeoneâs eventually going to latch onto this. The politics are just too good.â
A Century of Regulatory Inaction
â[The companies] say weâre independent, but weâre not independent,â said Jonathan Buttram, a former contract chicken farmer who is now president of the Alabama Contract Poultry Growers Association, during the Farm Action event. âHow can we be independent when we have the debt, we have all the dead chickens, and thatâs basically all we have? They own everything else. They make you feel like a sharecropper.â
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Meatpacking workers in Chicago circa 1905.
(Public domain photo from the Library of Congress)
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Americans have been here before. Worker abuses perpetrated by turn-of-the-century meat barons prompted Congress to pass the Packers & Stockyards Act in 1921, in part to âassure fair competition and fair trade practices, to safeguard farmers and ranchers.â
More than 100 years later, however, after a mind-numbing series of false starts, there were still no rules on the books to enforce the law when President Biden took office. Former President Trump is partially responsible: During the Obama administration, Secretary Vilsack got some rules started, but Trump immediately threw them out when he took office. Trump then went a step further, dissolving the office that was set up to
enforce Packers & Stockyards and moving oversight of the law to the USDAâs Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS).
âAMSâs job is basically promoting the largest corporations, including meatpackers and grain traders, so to say, âYou have to hold these companies accountable, but your bigger mission is to promote those companiesââthat gave us a lot of concern,â said Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action.
When Vilsack came in with a directive from Biden to restart work on Packers & Stockyards, he didnât reverse that decision. However, under his watch, the USDA has finalized or proposed multiple rules that have earned the support of a wide range of farmer groups, including the National Farmers Union and the American Farm Bureau Federation. âWeâve been really happy that the Biden administration has taken this up,â Huffman said, and sheâs been surprised by how vigorously theyâve pursued it. âOur big concern is just with the pace.â
A USDA spokesperson said the agency used maximum resources to expedite the pace but that the rulemaking process is complex.
Huffman sees two pending rules as the most important for contract poultry farmers, and notes that if theyâre not finalized before the election, an incoming president could throw them out immediately. Given thatâs what Trump did the last time around, thereâs reason to believe he would do it again, while Harris would likely let them stand. However, support of the rules doesnât always break down along party lines: Some Republican lawmakers have attempted to roll back progress on the rules by attaching policy riders to legislative packages, while a few Democrats have made requests to slow down the process in ways that echo meat industry requests.
Others are frustrated by the fact that the rules seem to flit around the edges of deeper reform. For example, one of the most controversial aspects of contract farming in the chicken industry has long been the âtournament system,â so called because wages are turned into a competition, with farmers paid based on how fat their chickens are compared to those at neighboring farms. If implemented, the rules could set minimums for base pay and require companies to provide more information on how their pay rate is calculated. The fundamental structure of the tournament system, however, would
remain.
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âAMSâs job is promoting the largest corporations, including meatpackers and grain traders, so to say, âYou have to hold these companies accountable, but your bigger mission is to promote those companiesââthat gave us a lot of concern.â
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Another rule would require companies to provide more details on the purpose and costs of upgrades when they demand farmers make expensive improvements to chicken houses, like Tyson did with the Ngos in 2021. But Nhu-Hai said thereâs only one thing that would really make a difference for farmers: if the pay covered the upgrade. âOtherwise, you still have to be more in debt. Itâs not worth it.â
Still, some farmer advocates see big potential in small tweaks to regulations, and Bidenâs USDA did deliver on another major priority of independent cattle ranchers: In March, the USDA finalized a new âProduct of USAâ rule so that meat carrying that label will now have to come from animals born, raised, and processed here. Itâs a change that comes after years of work, to ensure American farmers donât face unfair
competition from cheaper imports that carry the USA label.
The Consolidation of Agriculture
During Trumpâs presidency, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue famously told a group of struggling Wisconsin dairy farmers that, âIn America, the big get bigger, and the small go out.â
Secretary Vilsackâs language couldnât be more different. Since the USDA released the 2022 Farm Census data earlier this year, statistics on consolidation and the loss of small and mid-size farms have been a fixture in his regular speeches. At a recent Field Day at the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania, for example, he shared the fact that in 2022, the largest 7.5 percent of farms took in 89 percent of overall farm income, âwhich means that 1.7 million farms had to share 11 percent.â
He also noted that 544,000 farms have gone out of business since 1981. âIf you took every farmer today in North Dakota and South Dakota and added them to the ones in Minnesota and Wisconsin and those in Illinois and Iowa, as well as those in Nebraska and Colorado and those in Missouri and Oklahoma, youâd have roughly 544,000 farmers,â he laid out, for emphasis.
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One of the key actions his USDA has taken to save small and mid-size farms has been to invest in slaughterhouses and processing plants that work with farmers at that scale. The reasoning is simple: If there are more smaller, independent plants to buy and process animals for small farmers, competition will increase and the big packers will have less power.
In January 2022, the USDA announced a plan to invest $1 billion in competitive meat infrastructure. In July of this year, the agency said it had already distributed $700 million to that end.
But many experts say that because the big packers have already gotten so big, new, smaller plants will never be able to compete. âThe reality is that the meat markets got more concentrated these last four years. JBS made a purchase. Tyson made a purchase. Cargill got back into the chicken industry,â Frerick said.
A spokesperson for the USDA emphasized that many of the smaller plants have not even opened yet, and that reversing decades of concentration will require a long-term commitment to a whole-of-government approach.
âFrom the very first days of the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA has been working to promote competition in agriculture by making landmark investments that diversify agriculture processing and support small and rural businesses, modernizing the rulebook under the Packers & Stockyards Act, and implementing wide-ranging policies to address the harms that market concentration poses to farmers and consumers,â the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. âThese unprecedented actions will help to bring transparency, choice, and integrity back to the markets and serve the interests of farmers and small- and mid-sized independent processors alike.â
The USDAâs actions on other fronts have strengthened large companies: Vilsackâs USDA, for example, gave Tyson a $60 million Climate-Smart Commodities Grant. Under Trump, Brazil-based JBS, the largest meat company in the world, got the largest pork contract in a program meant to compensate American farmers for trade deficits, netting nearly $78 million. (In both cases, the administrations have said that the money is
passed through to farmers.)
Where Frerick thinks real change could happen to reign in consolidation is in antitrust regulation, which the Biden administration has also been pushing forward after appointing antitrust crusader Lina Khan to chair the FTC. Kahn has met with Iowa farmers about consolidation in the fertilizer industry, and in 2023, she led a significant update to the governmentâs merger guidelines. âThe FTC and DOJ [Department of Justice] now have much stronger guidelines. Over time, I think thatâs going to make a big difference, regardless of whoâs president,â Huffman said.
Looking to November
As to the two candidates angling to move into the White House next year, neither has said much or published detailed positions on meat industry consolidation.
However, Harris recently said she plans to crack down on food industry mergers, and the 2024 Democratic Party Platform mentions concentration and notes the Biden administrationâs work to âmake livestock and poultry markets fairer and more transparent.â Her past actions also provide some clues: Huffman said that when Harris was a senator, she voted in favor of checkoff reform, another big priority for groups working on curtailing corporate power in the food system.
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Frerick said it will all depend on who Harris appoints to lead the USDA. While he is emphatically disappointed in the Biden administrationâs performance on corporate consolidation, he thinks much of the failure lies in Vilsackâs ties to industry. If Trump wins, on the other hand, based on the former presidentâs last term, âeverything bad will get turbocharged,â he said. While farmers have become a sort of emblematic picture of a typical Trump voter and many support the former president this time around, across a diverse
agricultural landscape, there are also many who agree with Frerickâs opinion.
Carlton Sanders has been advocating for farmers since his Mississippi farm went into foreclosure in 2017, after, he said, the company he grew chickens for drove him out of business using discriminatory practices (which were later documented by the USDA). During the Farm Action event, he told a story of going to D.C. to meet with Trump during his first term. âHe checked my case and my records, and he said I should get back
to Mississippi and be proud that Koch Foods is providing jobs for the Mississippians. He said he wonât help with nothing, and he did not,â Sanders said. âDonald Trump is definitely not gonna help the chicken farmers.â
The 2024 Republican Party Platform does not mention corporate power, antitrust issues, or farmers in the meat industry.
As for Minh and Nhu-Hai Ngo, at the end of the day, theyâre not sure it matters who is in office in Washington. They are desperate to get out of the chicken business altogether, and Minh is thinking about going back to driving a truck. But they also just heard that Tyson sold its local operations to a smaller company that may be offering new contracts to farms in the region. So, they waver as they reason it out: If they canât sell the barns or make loan payments and a company comes along offering a contract, will the least terrible option be to get back in?
In August, after half a year of empty barns, they were increasingly anxious about their financial predicament. It seemed, Nhu-Hai said, that as long as companies like Tyson could amass unlimited wealth and power, elections would do little to change the course of their future. âSometimes, I donât feel like it makes a big difference,â she said.
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For Professor Chris Bosso, Politics and Food Go Hand in Hand
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BY JIM COLGAN
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Professor Chris Bosso tells his students that if they want to understand the food system, they need to understand politics. Bosso is a professor of public policy and politics at Northeastern University in Boston, and the interim chair of its political science department. He also thinks food provides the perfect lens to understand the American political system.
Take corn, for instance. âWhy do we grow corn for ethanol? Itâs bad energy policy, itâs bad environmental policy, but itâs great politics,â Bosso says. Growing corn for fuel, mandated by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), actually degrades soil and encourages the problematic use of fertilizers and herbicides, not to mention âan incredible amount of water. And it has minimal impact on oil prices,â he says. âThe real winners have been corn growers, ethanol refiners, and other businesses connected to corn ethanol . . . even candidates for president wonât challenge it if they want to win in the Midwest.â
He runs through some of the questions that come up in his class: Why are fresh fruits and vegetables more expensive than ultra-processed food? Why are we losing so many family farms? Why is so much food ecologically unsustainable?
âThe answer I have is: politics,â he says.
To answer questions like this and many others, Bosso has written two books about food and politics, and teaches an entire class on the farm bill. When he first started lecturing about food 20 years ago, he says, college courses on food were rare outside agricultural schools in rural states.
Bosso began getting interested in food as an academic matter when he noticed how critically important it wasâespecially in the places where it wasnât grown. At his large urban university, students and teachers werenât producing food, but they were certainly eating it. âAnd I, as a political scientist, began to ask, âWell, who voted for this food system that we have?ââ
In 2014, Bosso got so interested in the farm bill that he decided to write a book about its modern dynamics. Heâd been reviewing the billâs history for a talk he was asked to give, and was astounded at the final vote for that yearâs bill: All four Republican House members from Kansas had voted against it.
âThe political scientist in me said, âThatâs insane.â Youâre voting against your interests. Youâre voting against your constituents. Whatâs going on here?â
Answering that question, Bosso says, revealed the low number of individual farmers left in the stateânot obvious given the size of its agriculture sector. And that meant House members were under less pressure to represent farming interests, which was proven true when those Republicans were reelected that same year.
âThe farm bill gives you an insight into the broader polarization in our political system today,â Bosso says. It also shows how the people most motivated to get involved are the ones with the most money at stake. âYou have this asymmetry in mobilization: usually, well-organized producer interests versus the unorganized majority of consumers. Thatâs what happens in politics. All the time.â
Whatâs also remarkable about the farm bill, Bosso says, is how few people pay attention to this consequential package of legislation, which affects the food we all eat and includes vital nutrition assistance programs. Many consumers may not know or care that the current 2023 Farm Bill still hasnât passedâand chances are, it wonât by the new deadline of September 30. If the past is any guide, Bosso says, Congress is likely to extend the current law another year, âunless Republicans lose both houses in the November election, at which point they may try to push through a bill before 2025.â
For the majority of Americans, he says, the farm bill is an abstraction. But it helps to remember, Bosso suggests, that the least abstract thing for any of us is what we eat.
And itâs not hard to know more, he adds. âDig a little deeper into where your food comes from, and you start getting politically interested.â
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How We Report Our Stories
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We abide by the standards of editorial independence adopted by the Institute for Nonprofit News (INN). We make no endorsements and take no sides. Through providing context and analysis, we strive to encourage critical thinking about our food system. For more on how we work, visit our About page.
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Thatâs all for this issue of The Deep Dish. Thank you for reading, and thank you for being a member of the Civil Eats community. If this is your first time reading The Deep Dish (welcome!), be sure to check out our previous issues:
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