Conservatives Are Stomping Out Family Farms-- And Not Just Republican Conservatives Either

You know what's bipartisan in DC? Agricultural policy-- and it sucks, for farmers, for rural communities and for consumers. Jeff Hauser and Eleanor Eagan, reporting for Washington Monthly, have no doubt that the Trump Regime is up to no good when it comes to family farms, but they point out that it isn't just Trump and the Republicans. "The administration is letting agribusiness run amok, they wrote. But, they ask, where is the congressional oversight?

Collin Peterson is one of the most conservative, Republican-like Democrats-- an extreme right Blue Dog in a Trumpist district-- in Congress. Right up against the Dakotas-- from the border of Manitoba across from Kittson County, down to Pipestone County in the south-- his vast rural district has a PVI of R+12, the reddest district held by any Democrat in the House. And he holds it by playing ball with the GOP. Trump beat Hillary by over 20 points in the district, 61.8% to 31.0%. Ironically, while Trump swept MN-07, Bernie did better than Hillary-- and everyone else-- on caucus day in 2016.

• Bernie- 6,608
• Ted Cruz- 4,326
• Hillary- 3,852
• Señor Trumpanzee- 3,401

Voters wanted change-- and they knew who was offering it for real.

Last year Amy Klobuchar did well in MN-07 but neither Tina Smith, also running for the Senate, nor Tim Walz, the Democrats' successful gubernatorial candidate, did. Collin Peterson won again, though-- 146,672 (52.1%) to 134,668 (47.9%). In 2016 Peterson beat the same GOP opponent, Dave Hughes by about the same margin, having raised $1,201,913 compared to Hughes' $19,836. Much of Peterson's big fundraising advantage cames, as it always does, from agribusiness. In 2018 Peterson raised $1,425,449 (and was forced to spend more than he raised) but Hughes raised much more than he had in 2016-- $232,724. It will be a miracle if Peterson survives next year. There are 5 Republicans competing to take him on and two of them, Noel Collins (a self-funder) and Michelle Fischbach (the party favorite) have raised6 figures. Hughes is giving it another shot but isn't raising significant money. There's also a Democrat primarying Collins, Stephen Emery but he's not raising any money and he's actually challenging Peterson from the right as a Pelosi lapdog!

Here's Emery's schpiel:

He has presided over the rise of the mega corporate farm and multi-national agriculture corporation and demise of our rural communities and family farms.

He voted to allow illegal immigrants to vote in our elections!

He says he’s the most bi-partisan member of Congress, but he votes with Nancy Pelsosi almost all of the time and gives his money to extremely liberal causes that oppose the issues he says he supports.

Nancy Pelosi effectively is the Representative for the Minnesota Seventh Congressional District. The first thing Collin Peterson does after he is elected is to vote for Nancy Pelosi. He helps put her in charge of the machinery of Congress. He knows that much of what occurs there is procedural and through committees, so the leader wields incredible power. She has a say as to who serves on which committee, and how, and if, bills move through the House. Furthermore, he knows that Congress works essentially through a two party system, and they tend to vote in groups, so what the leader pushes to a large measure determines what the result will be.

So, it doesn’t matter how he votes on any particular bill, because he votes “yes” on Nancy Pelosi’s initiatives when he voted for her to lead the Democrats in Congress, and that is the vote that matters. Has his vote against a Pelosi initiative ever meant the difference of whether it passes? I don’t think so, and so it is always a safe, meaningless vote-- except for his re-electability.

So, regardless of how Collin Peterson otherwise may vote, a vote for Collin Peterson is a vote for Nancy Pelosi and gun control;

A vote for Collin Peterson is a vote for the Nancy Pelosi and Obamacare and poorer medical care;

A vote for Collin Peterson is a vote for Nancy Pelosi and sodomy and biological males in women’s showers and bathrooms;

A vote for Collin Peterson is a vote for Nancy Pelosi and Islam and Muslims and illegal aliens sweeping across the nation and voting in our elections! The rise of the Islamist has occurred on his watch and he hasn’t done anything to address it!;

A vote for Collin Peterson is a vote for the Nancy Pelosi and more and more in-your-face control by the United Nations over our lives;

A vote for Collin Peterson is a vote for Nancy Pelosi and extreme environmentalism.

A vote for Collin Peterson is a vote for Nancy Pelosi and Planned Parenthood and the butchering of babies and the sale of baby parts;

A vote for Collin Peterson is a vote for Nancy Pelosi and mega corporate farming and disenfranchising our children from remaining on the land and continuing farming which is the most common form of free enterprise;

A vote for Collin Peterson is a vote for Nancy Pelosi and more and more welfare that the nation can’t support and that isn’t good for the welfare recipient or the taxpayer, and a complete collapse of our economy due to run-away debt;

A vote for Collin Peterson is a vote for Nancy Pelosi and this massive tax and spend program that is wrapped around this lie called man-made global warming.

We need different, and far better, representation in Washington, D.C.

The people who established this nation intended for a continual rotation of citizens for elective positions, not career politicians like Collin Peterson. Let’s value private enterprise and personal responsibility. Let’s spend within our means and not create more debt for our children and grandchildren.

Most of it's a bunch of crazy Republican talking points-- except for the first complaint: "He has presided over the rise of the mega corporate farm and multi-national agriculture corporation and demise of our rural communities and family farms." There is where he has a valid point.

As we mentioned a couple of weeks ago Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, told Wisconsin dairy farmers that "In America, the big get bigger and the small go out. I don’t think in America we, for any small business, we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability." In other words, wrote Hauser and Eagan, "he was telling the farmers: you’re probably screwed and there’s nothing you can do about it."

Contrary to Perdue’s claims, the deaths of small farms are not a result of natural forces. They are a consequence of explicit policy choices that have allowed for the rampant consolidation and disinvestment that are crushing rural communities. Only two decades ago, there were 600 companies that sold seed. Today, there are only four. It’s no wonder that the cost of seeds and plant corn has risen 329 percent in that time period, with similar increases for other crops.

Perdue hasn’t just failed to recognize the root causes of farmers’ pain; he has actively aided the forces responsible for it. From his first days in office, he has turned the full power of the USDA against farmers and rural communities on behalf of Big Agriculture, betraying one of the constituencies most vital to Trump’s 2016 win.

None of this should surprise anyone. What should be genuinely shocking, however, is that Congressman Collin Peterson, a Democrat from Minnesota and the chair of the House Agriculture Committee, has been practically silent about these attacks. Over the past nine months, he has only convened one full committee hearing. And while his panel heard testimony from Perdue in February, Peterson has yet to call him back despite his committing numerous transgressions since, including his continued efforts to impose work requirements on access to food stamps and pressing ahead to relocate the department’s research wing out of D.C.

Peterson, who declined our request for comment, has failed to fulfill his obligation to protect farmers and rural communities. That is not only bad on the substance, but it is a missed opportunity for Democrats to win back support among American farmers, who overwhelmingly pulled the lever for Trump in 2016.

In recent years, consolidated agribusinesses have translated their rising profits into formidable political power. They have successfully weakened or killed many measures that would have limited their control over farmers’ lives and livelihoods, including fighting laws that would give farmers the right to repair their own equipment, something that overzealous copyright protections have prevented them from doing. When these and other nasty practices get too much attention, Big Ag wields its considerable weight to silence critics, whether that means getting a newspaper cartoonist fired or suing the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to close a public comment period on a proposed merger.

Over the past few decades, Democrats have too often either supported the policies that got us here, or fallen short in resisting them. In 2008, Barack Obama made fighting consolidation a feature of his agricultural policy platform. But once in power, he failed to act decisively on those promises. His administration hesitated to enact proposed regulations that would have made it easier for contract farmers to sue packing and processing companies for unfair practices. Then, it found itself unable to move forward once Republicans took the House in 2010.

As with most things, however, the Trump administration has taken a bad problem and made it worse. Earlier this year, the Department of Justice approved a merger between two agricultural industry giants, Monsanto and Bayer, allowing for the creation of a new behemoth. And those Obama-era contracting rules? They were eventually approved in 2016, but Perdue promptly scrapped them after taking power. Worse yet, Perdue’s USDA has walked back enforcement of many of the remaining rules to protect contract farmers.

This is all without mentioning what’s at the forefront of people’s minds when they think about Trump’s impact on farmers: trade policy. Yet as these examples should make clear, the harm this administration is inflicting on farmers goes well beyond trade.

Unfortunately, House Democrats have done little to draw attention to Trump’s deleterious agricultural policies When they do respond by holding a hearing, like over the decision to move the USDA’s Economic Research Service to Kansas City, they fail to confront those responsible for their actions, or take definitive actions to stop them.

Meanwhile, in the same time span that Peterson only convened one full committee hearing, Agriculture’s six subcommittees have held a combined 19 hearings, seven of which involved testimony from USDA officials. The Committee has issued zero subpoenas to corporate or governmental actors.

Peterson should reverse course and start from the top. The USDA is a big department with a diverse set of important responsibilities, ranging from protecting farming and rural economies, to ensuring food safety and administering the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

...Democrats need to perform meaningful oversight of the Trump administration’s assault on American farmers. Impeachment doesn’t obviate the need for skeptical oversight. It underscores it. Oversight is, put simply, a basic fulfillment of Congress’ governing obligations. It can uncover abuse, create pressure for change, and facilitate the development of much needed policy alternatives. And, as an added bonus, the political upside seems clear.

This strategy might seem somewhat unorthodox. It contravenes the gospel that Democrats can only win agricultural districts by espousing a quiet, inoffensive centrism. But that would cede control of the political debate to Trump. If Democrats only play on the president’s terms, the conversation will always shift away from the real issue.

Democrats must therefore redefine the debate on agriculture policy through rigorous oversight. In rural America, they have to demonstrate their willingness to take on political corruption of all shades, and to challenge corporate America’s chokehold over the political process.

Yet Democrats have been surprisingly unwilling to take on one of the most unifying issues across the electorate: how the system is rigged to hurt ordinary people and boost big corporations.

Trump has created an opportunity for Democrats to take up this message in virtually every area of policy, but now especially with farmers. House Democrats have a unique opening to prove to rural voters that they are serious about taking on structural inequities. All they have to do is highlight and push back against the administration’s efforts to enrich corporations at the expense of small farmers. In other words, they have to simply do their jobs.

J.D. Scholten, who the day after Perdue's talk with the Wisconsin day farmers, termed his comments "a middle finger to family farmers," is running for Congress in Iowa's 4th district, the only one still in GOP hands, the only one held by a white nationalist (Steve King). King was kicked off the House Agriculture Committee by Paul Ryan for his repeated inflammatory racist comments. No one doubts that on the first day of Scholten's appearance as a member of Congress, Pelosi will make sure IA-04 is represented on that committee again. "American farmers are struggling to get by," he told me yesterday, "forced to work one, two, or more jobs off the farm to make ends meet. We, the Democratic Party, are supposed to be the party of the working class-- we’re supposed to be voice of the voiceless, the champion for those who have been left behind. As corporations further consolidate and control the markets, the Democratic Party has a responsibility to speak out and fight for workers. This administration has manipulated the trade war for the gain of Trump’s donors, abused the RFS to the benefit of big oil, dismantled the USDA, has hurt worker safety, and much more-- but we’ve given rural America no viable alternative. It’s past time for Democrats to show up: to prove that we’re trustworthy, honest and willing to fight for working people. Only then, can we elect a fighter who is willing to stand for everyday people rather than someone who can max out on a donation check."

The gospel that Democrats can only win agricultural districts by espousing a quiet, inoffensive centrism? Not J.D. Scholten. Take a look at Bernie's rural development agenda. That's about as far as you can get from inoffensive centrism. But Peterson's congressional district wasn't the only rural district where Bernie trounced Hillary.

Take the vast rural district in northeast California (CA-01). There are 11 counties. Last year, corporate Democrat Dianne Feinstein lost every one of them. Gavin Newsom, also a corporatist, lost 10 of the 11. Bernie did a lot better in 2016-- and Audrey Denney, a progressive running on much of Bernie's populist program won the biggest county in the district, Butte, and well as Nevada County. Bernie won 9 of the 11 counties and won the mostly rural and small town congressional district convincingly. Here were Bernie's numbers:

• Butte- 58.9%
• Shasta- 50.0%
• Nevada- 59.8%
• Placer- 42.0%
• Tehama- 49.6%
• Siskiyou- 58.0%
• Plumas- 53.7%
• Lassen- 50.8%
• Modoc- 50.7%
• Sierra- 55.8%
• Glenn- 48.8%

Audrey Denney is taking on Trump enabler Doug LaMalfa again this cycle. She told us that "the Trump Administration policies are directly hurting farmers all over the country. According to the American Farm Bureau, farm bankruptcy filings for 2019 through June were up 13% from 2018 and loan delinquency rates are on the rise. North State farmers are asking for trade policies that expand markets and immigration reform that helps them get the labor they need. Congressman LaMalfa-- a farmer himself-- has failed to be an advocate for the industry he represents. I’ve worked in agriculture education my entire career and can’t wait to fight for North State farmers and ranchers when they send me to DC... Every year it becomes harder and harder for farmer and ranchers to make their work pencil. Tariffs are adding increasing pressure on farmers’ already razor thin profit margins-- add this to an inability to find and retain skilled labor-- and many North State farmers are really hurting. Every multi-generational family famers’ nightmare is being the generation that loses the farm. My family lived that reality with the 2008 recession-- this is a personal issue for me."





Kathy Ellis is running in one of the reddest rural districts in America, located in the southeast corner of Missouri. Farmers and the small towns that depend on agriculture to sustain them are hurting there. "Agribusiness has taken over rural communities like mine," she told us today. "Between climate change damaging crops and the impact of Trump's tariffs, farmers are left without options other than to sell to Agribusiness Companies. It takes away local control of these farms and it damages our local economy. And to make matters worse, our current representative not only doesn't stop this, he also takes thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from these companies. He's not working on behalf of farmers. He's working on behalf of Big Agriculture, and it must stop."

Progressive North Carolina pastor Jason Butler looks at the problem beyond mere congressional policy. "Perception," he said, "is reality and the reality is: DC Democrats don’t really seem to care about the rural community. If they did-- as this article points out-- they’d step up and do something. Trump has created incredible openings in the rural community through damaging trade wars and damaging farming policies-- but corporate Democrats aren’t countering it. Instead, we too, seem bent on blaming the rural community for electing and sustaining Trump. On one hand, we are telling the rural community that we (Democrats) will help you more, but on the other hand we are blaming them for our current situation. No one wants to be part of a group that looks down on them-- even if they will help them more. I think the Democrats' problem goes much deeper than farming policy-- it goes into the reality that we don’t appreciate the rural American experience. We used to-- but we don’t anymore. And while Republican policy does not help them, and even hurts them-- they value (or pretend to value) rural life and rural values. And at the end of the day, all of us want to belong to a group of people that value us and our experience. Winning the trust of the rural community won’t be easy, and will take some time-- but here is where we should start-- places like this: making sure we stand up for farmers-- big and small, making sure we are boldly pushing policies that sustain and empower rural life, and holding this administration accountable for its lack of rural support."