Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project today released a new policy brief outlining the harms of consolidation across the agriculture industry, and providing a roadmap for how Congress can reintroduce competition to the industry in the upcoming 2023 Farm Bill.

“For too long, farm policy has favored a handful of dominant meatpackers and agribusinesses at the expense of independent ranchers and farmers,” says Erik Peinert, Research Manager and Editor at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Reintroducing robust competition across the food and agriculture industry will not only empower farmers and rural communities, but strengthen our national food security and supply chains through added domestic resiliency. From prohibiting foreign ownership of farmland to implementing strict payment cap and income-eligibility limits on farm subsidy programs, there are a number policies for policymakers to seize the opportunity to do so in the upcoming Farm Bill.”

Over the past 40 years, the American food supply chain has become concentrated in the hands of a few large multinationals, which serve as middlemen in everything from seed genetics to hog processing to supermarkets. This concentrated power erodes the earnings and freedom of farmers, farm workers, and rural communities that depend on agriculture.

Economic Liberties’ new brief outlines a number of practical policies for policymakers to rein in agriculture consolidation, boost our food and national security, and address perverse consolidation incentives. These include policy solutions, which Economic Liberties recommends incorporating in to the 2023 Farm Bill, include actions to:

• Reform Checkoff Programs with the Opportunities for Fairness in Farming (OFF) Act
• Establish a Designated USDA Competition Enforcer with The Meat & Poultry Special Investigator Act of 2023
• Codify Proposed USDA Rules to Strengthen Packers and Stockyards Act Enforcement into Statute
• Establish Mandatory Country of Origin Labelling (MCOOL) for Beef Imports
• Enact “Right to Repair” Protections that Affirm the Illegality of Tying Arrangements
• Restrict the Size of Livestock Processing Plants on National Security Grounds
• Prohibit Foreign Ownership of Farmland
• Implement Strict Payment Caps and Income-Eligibility Limits on Farm Subsidy Programs
• Restrict Further Consolidation Among Farm Credit System (FCS) Institutions
• Require the Farm Crop Insurance Corporation (FCIC) to Issue Insurance Policies Directly to Farmers

Read the full policy brief here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.