Progress Report-US

The whole point of this blog is that it’s a work in progress. Here’s my progreess so far on US policy. (Eventually I’ll get around to California and local policy.) First, I’m specifically interested in food production as it relates to climate. There are two federal bodies that deal primarily with food, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Only the first deals with issues that relate to climate, so I’ll be giving the FDA short shrift.

Legislation

Farm Bill – Passed roughly every five years, it’s the primary enabling legislation.
A trio of antitrust laws that seem ancient but are still very relevant given that the astonishing level of concentration in food production is seen by many as a problem:
- Sherman Antitrust Act (1890)
- Clayton Antitrust Act (1914)
- Packers & Stockyards Act (P&SA, 1921)

Government Entities

President – Sets policy and appoints the Secretary of Agriculture, who heads the DOA.
Department of Agriculture – Administers the Farm Bill
Legislative Ag Committees
- House Agriculture Committee
- Senate Agriculture Committee

Special Interests

I haven’t got very far with interest groups, but my sense is that there are lots of lobbyists and most of them are representing large business interests, not people whose only interest in food is eating it, or small farmers, or the rural communities that depend on farming. I see that as a problem. Open Secrets looks like a great site for getting up to speed on lobbyists. I’m sure I’ll be looking to if for help later.

That’s it for now, but I hope, in time, to expand all this… a LOT.

Urban-Rural Divide

Worth a read: Why Democrats Keep Losing Rural Counties Like Mine, by Bill Hogseth, chair of the Dunn County Democratic Party in Wisconsin, in Politico, 12/01/2020.

He details how consolidation in the food industry — that is, big companies buying out smaller ones and then moving on to consume each other — is devastating farmers and farming communities in the United States, and how the Democratic party isn’t helping.

“Farmers’ share of every retail food dollar has fallen from

about 50 percent in 1952 to 15 percent today. Corporations control more and more of the agriculture business…”

Antitrust action is a priority for rural voters, but the Democratic Party doesn’t seem to get it. Obama said the right things but didn’t follow through. “His Department of Agriculture balked when it came time to enforce anti-monopoly rules such as those in the Packers and Stockyard Act…”

Now Biden, is saying the right things, too. “In his rural plan, Biden pledged to ‘strengthen antitrust enforcement,’ but the term doesn’t appear until the 35th bullet point. For rural voters, antitrust enforcement is a top priority.” And shortly after publication of Hogseth’s piece, Biden announced his pick for Secretary of Agriculture — Vilsack, former secretary of agriculture under Obama.

“But my hope,” say Hogseth, “is for Democrats to listen to and learn from the experiences of rural people.”

Big Ag and Antitrust, a Conference

Yale law school is offering a free online conference on January 16, 2021, “Big Ag & Antitrust: Competition Policy for a Sustainable and Humane Food System,” 6 am (ouch!) to 2 pm. I’m signed up! Six am is early, but it’s better than the event I attended that was set in Europe.

Bill Bullard, the CEO of R-CALF USA, has been invited to present a paper updating a 2013 publication of his in The South Dakota Law Review, Under Siege: The U.S. Live Cattle Industry. Reading it could give you a taste of what the conference is about — or perhaps a hearty meal. It’s 51 dense pages with footnotes. Here’s the abstract:

Although the largest U.S. agricultural sector—the live cattle industry—is
still comprised of hundreds of thousands of independent producers, it is
currently on a trajectory to become a vertically integrated supply chain
controlled by just a handful of dominant meatpackers. This is the fate already
suffered by the nation’s hog and poultry industries within which once
competitive markets have been replaced with corporate command and control
and opportunities for independent livestock businesses have largely disappeared.
Only by renewing the nation’s long lost appetite for antitrust enforcement and
other legal actions to preserve livestock market competition can the ailing cattle
industry be revitalized for future generations.