Senate Unveils Farm Bill Criticized for Ignoring 250,000 Lost Farms and Shielding Corporate Power
Updated
Updated · cnhinews.com · Jul 30
Senate Unveils Farm Bill Criticized for Ignoring 250,000 Lost Farms and Shielding Corporate Power
3 articles · Updated · cnhinews.com · Jul 30
Summary
The Senate’s Farm Bill is drawing sharp criticism for preserving the current farm policy model rather than addressing the pressures farmers say have driven nearly 250,000 farms out of business since 2014.
Key omissions cited by critics include mandatory country-of-origin labeling, year-round E15, antitrust enforcement, supply management and parity pricing—measures they say are needed to restore demand, competition and stable farm income.
Corporate concentration sits at the center of the complaint: four packers control more than 80% of U.S. beef processing, while two companies dominate seed sales, leaving farmers squeezed by monopoly power on both buying and selling sides.
$200 billion in emergency farm payments since trade wars began in 2019 is presented as evidence the existing system no longer works, forcing Congress to rely on repeated bailouts instead of building automatic income stabilizers into the Farm Bill.
The broader warning is that without structural reforms, the bill will keep shifting value to large agribusinesses while farmers take on more debt, rural communities shrink and land moves increasingly to investors.