🌎 Resumen en español · traducción automática
Mientras el Senado falla en aprobar una nueva Ley Agrícola que ya lleva tres años de retraso, nuevos proyectos de ley emergen para enfrentar el poder corporativo excesivo en la economía agrícola, abordando problemas como la falta de competencia en el mercado de carne de res, precios injustos en lácteos y abuso de patentes por empresas de semillas. Aunque la administración Trump ha promocionado investigaciones en los sectores de fertilizantes y carne de res, ha favorecido repetidamente a grandes empresas agroindustriales con exenciones arancelarias, permisos acelerados y decisiones que fortalecen su posición en el mercado agrícola.
Traducción y resumen generados por IA a partir del artículo en inglés. Puede contener errores; consulte el texto original.
Last week, the Senate Agriculture Committee failed to approve a new Farm Bill. The new bill is now three years overdue and effectively paralyzed, even as farmers face rising costs, growing debt, climate disruptions and market losses. Cutting through the Farm Bill quagmire are a series of exciting new bills that directly address excess corporate power in the food and farm economy. The slate of new bills tackles unfair markets in ways that are missing from the official Farm Bill process, including lack of competition in the beef market, unfair pricing in dairy, patent abuse by seed companies, speculative farmland investors, and exploitative treatment of food workers.
Both the House Farm Bill, passed in April, and the proposed Senate bill are essentially backing the status quo and neither address issues caused by excess corporate power in the sector. While the Trump administration has touted investigations into the fertilizer sector (by the Federal Trade Commission) and beef sector (by the Department of Justice), the administration has handed out favor after favor to big agribusiness firms, further entrenching their position within the farm economy.
Earlier this month, USDA delayed implementation of Biden administration rules that protect farmers from discriminatory, deceptive, and retaliatory corporate actions in the market — prompting a rare joint rebuke by the country’s two largest farm groups. Over the last year, the Trump administration approved faster line speeds for meat processing companies, gave tariff exemptions for beef import (and beef importing companies) coming from Brazil and Argentina, successfully advocated for global chemical giant Bayer before the Supreme Court, sped up permitting for fertilizer giant CF Industries, granted a request from controversial global meat giant JBS to be publicly traded, and last week re-opened the Mexican border for cattle (a priority for big beef processors) despite ongoing concerns about the northern spread of the flesh-eating screwworm.
For more than a decade, farm and food groups have been calling for tighter controls on powerful agribusiness players. When the Farm Bill process began in 2023, farm groups including the National Farmers Union called for a Competition Title to be added to the bill. Over the last six months, these new bills, introduced outside the stalled Farm Bill process, could provide the basis for a future Competition Title.
Lack of Competition in Beef Markets
“Breaking up the dominant meat processing companies while addressing horizontal integration would make the overall industry more fair and competitive, while also providing consumers with more affordable and abundant choices at the grocery store.”
– Travis Anderson, North Dakota cattle rancher and member of Dakota Resource Council
Just four global companies (JBS, Tyson, National Beef/Marfrig, and Cargill) control 85% of the beef sector. This level of corporate control has reduced competition nationally and regionally for farmers and ranchers selling cattle and has been tied to higher prices for consumers. This week, a judge in Minnesota ruled that an antitrust case accusing the companies of price fixing could move forward. A new U.S. House bill (following a companion bill in the Senate) would block the meatpackers from operating in multiple protein segments (beef, pork, and poultry), place a hard cap on corporate concentration levels at the national and regional level, and direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce against discriminatory pricing practices in retail and wholesale meat markets that hit independent and neighborhood grocers the hardest.
Seed Companies Use Patents to Stifle Seed Breeding
“By limiting corporate control over seed and plant intellectual property, the Fair Seeds for Farmers Act will empower seed breeders across the food system to add to the collective biodiversity of seed and develop varieties more resilient to weather, pest, and disease pressures.”
– Aaron Johnson, Policy co-director at Rural Advancement Foundation International
Farmers and researchers face barriers to accessing certain seed varieties and germplasm for plant breeding. Just two companies account for more than half of corn, soy, and cotton seed sales, crowding out competitors and driving up prices for farmers through their use of the patent system. In 2023, the Biden administration published a major report on how private corporate utility patents on seeds stifle researchers and competition, particularly at public universities. The Fair Seeds for Farmers Act (with a Senate companion) would limit the patentability of seeds to the Plant Variety Protection Act and the Plant Patent Act..
Mega Dairies Flood the Market, Push Out Small and Midsized Operations
“Farm policy has shifted away from ensuring farmers a fair price to one that sees agribusiness profit as its sole driver. This is especially true for the dairy sector.”
– Jim Goodman, retired dairy farmer and co-president of the National Family Farm Coalition
Since 2000, the U.S. has lost nearly 75% of its small and midsized dairy farmers. During that time, mega-dairies have grown and increasingly flood the market and push prices for farmers down. The Milk from Family Dairies Act would match national dairy production to national demand, including price floors that ensure farmers receive a fair price for the milk they produce. It would also reform and create USDA programs that revive regional dairy supply chains, including through new training and apprenticeship programs.
Private Farmland Investors Crowding Out Farmers
“As farmland has increasingly been consolidated under corporate ownership, evidence shows that the result in rural communities is depopulation, the loss of critical institutions such as banks and hospitals, and fewer jobs.”
– Letter from more than 100 groups to Congress
Access to farmland is the single biggest challenge for new farmers. For decades, farmland ownership has consolidated, resulting in fewer, larger farms that are often owned by outside investors. The Protect Farmland for Farmers Act would limit the role of outside speculators by preventing corporate ownership of farmland that is kept in agricultural production, requiring full transparency from domestic and foreign corporations that own farmland, and forbidding corporations from utilizing federal agricultural programs.
Food System Workers Are Often Exploited
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture spends billions of dollars every year buying food, and that food should not come from companies that mistreat their workers. The Agricultural Worker Justice Act ensures that food and agricultural companies that exploit workers cannot do so on the dime of American taxpayers.”
– Milton Jones, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union
Work in meat and poultry processing plants is considered among the most dangerous jobs, with high rates of injury for often low wages. The Agricultural Worker Justice Act would prohibit USDA from buying meat, poultry, or processed food from companies that pay workers below the prevailing wage rate in their area. The bill addresses dangerous line speeds, exploitative attendance policies, and company retaliatory actions that are common in the industry. It directs companies to disclose labor law violations before applying for any government contracts.
Merger Mania Drove Food Industry Consolidation to Dangerous Levels
“Multinational food and agriculture corporations are raking in billions of dollars at the expense of farmers, workers, consumers, and our future. While their top executives and shareholders profit, consumers face rising grocery prices and farmers and ranchers teeter on the verge of bankruptcy.”
– Judith McGeary, executive director, Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance
The Fairness for Small-Scale Farmers and Ranchers Act would mandate a review of past mergers within the food system and place a moratorium on new mergers. It would strengthen antitrust laws in food and agriculture systems and provide support for local, small-scale farmers and ranchers. The bill aims to better protect farmers against unfair, discriminatory, and deceptive practices by strengthening the Packers and Stockyards Act (PSA). It would also reinstate mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for beef.
As a dysfunctional Congress struggles to simply pass a Farm Bill, never mind one that meaningfully responds to the current crisis, it has created a vacuum for bolder ideas that confront excess corporate power in the food system to emerge. In an encouraging sign that more in Congress are getting the message, the Senate Agriculture Committee included mandatory COOL in its draft Farm Bill. But if Congress wants to credibly respond to the current farm crisis we’re in, this proposed blueprint on corporate accountability is a good start.
Ben Lilliston is the director of Climate Change and Rural Strategies at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, where he writes about the intersections of climate, trade, and farm policy. He works with Midwest, national, and international partners to build a policy framework for a just transition for farmers and rural communities in responding to the climate crisis.
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