Biden’s appointments might now be famous for wanting to break up big tech. But both have earned their antitrust chops on farm country, says Joe Maxwell, president of Family Farm Action, a non-profit that fights corporate control of agriculture.
Family Farm Action is calling for more states to follow Missouri’s lead pushing to investigate price fixing by packers in the cattle market.
Over 60 groups ended up collaborating in this database, including racial justice groups like Color of Change and Liberation in a Generation; climate leaders like Sunrise and Friends of the Earth; advocacy groups like Indivisible, MoveOn, and People’s Action; think tanks like Demos and the Center for Economic and Policy Research; corporate watchdogs like Public Citizen and Amazon Watch; and agriculture groups ranging from Family Farm Action to the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association.
Joe Maxwell, who leads Family Farm Action, said Biden’s picks for other USDA jobs were solid, especially the nomination of Virginia Agriculture Secretary Jewel Bronaugh, who is Black, for the No. 2 job at the department. And he credited Vilsack for engaging with his critics since his nomination.
It would benefit the country immensely, and it could help the Democrats win back rural voters.
“There’s definitely a trust problem there,” Huffman says of the consequence of Vilsack’s time working for the USDEC. She cited additional concerns about Vilsack’s poor record on civil rights and market consolidation in his first two terms at the agency. “Why would he be better this time after having worked the last four years for the industry?”
President-elect Joe Biden plucked Tom Vilsack to serve as agricultural secretary, a former Iowa governor who filled the role under President Obama. But some farmers are sure to be outraged by the decision…
The new president can remake agricultural and food policy even if Congress refuses to do anything about them.
Rep. Marcia Fudge had lost her patience with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue by February 2019. At a hearing nearly two years earlier, in May 2017, the Ohio Democrat had let Perdue go on at length describing his goals for reorganizing the Department of Agriculture. Running it like a corporate CEO would bring better results to rural America, he’d said.
As Biden forms his cabinet and prepares to govern, a new paper, commissioned by the Family Farm Action Alliance, makes a strong case that Big Ag consolidation actually harms working-class and farmer livelihoods in rural areas.