The New America Foundation says United States President
Barrack Obama planned to rein in the nation’s largest meat packers, but after
two years in office, he backed off.
“In an effort that
went largely unnoticed by the mainstream press, the Obama administration
launched a frontal assault on the giant meat and dairy processing companies
that dominate rural America,” the Foundation says.
“In the most
far-reaching attempt to reform Big Ag in a half-century, the administration’s
top brass went after a system that allows de facto monopolies to bully farmers
into contracts, force them into debt, pay them arbitrarily, and leave them
powerless, penniless, and afraid to speak out.
“The efforts failed,
according to a new Washington Monthly article out by Lina
Khan, policy analyst in the New America Foundation's
Markets, Enterprise, and Resiliency Initiative.
“As Khan reports,
the administration held an unprecedented series of public hearings, inviting
farmers to speak out.
“But as soon Big
Food reacted, officials retreated in disorder, leaving companies free to treat
America's farmers as they please.
“Khan explains
how officials let politics derail reform and details how this gross imbalance
of power threatens not merely the livelihood of rural Americans but many of
their basic liberties,” the Foundation says.
