Today, America’s independent farmers face many challenges: natural disasters and the rising threat of climate change, the pain of President Donald Trump’s China tariffs — which, sadly, force farmers to sacrifice for a trade agenda that almost exclusively benefits the largest corporations — and a shortage of farm labor.
Against this backdrop, though, America’s agriculture producers are feeling increasing economic pressure from another angle: corporate consolidation and monopoly power. A new report by the Center for American Progress (CAP) highlights how the agriculture sector has witnessed a decades-long structural trend that has seen the rise of dominant players. This exploding level of concentration has tilted the economic playing field dramatically in favor of powerful, distant corporations and against the earning power of farmers. Such a supply chain structure squeezes hard-working farmers, while a lack of competition enables powerful corporations to increase input prices and depress or manipulate the prices farmers receive.
The above excerpt was originally published in Morning Consult.
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