Turkey farmers facing squeeze after Trump kills agriculture rules

[workinclasszero]

Turkey farmers facing squeeze after Trump kills agriculture rules
A USDA decision is giving significant power to the multibillion-dollar meat industry, potentially crushing the smaller turkey farmers.
By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY 11/22/2017 05:04 AM EST

Ike Horst raises 22,000 turkeys a year on his farm in the rolling hills of south-central Pennsylvania, selling them to a processing company that was providing him with enough of a nest egg that he hoped he could sell the farm and retire.

But a Trump administration decision to block proposed agriculture regulations may blow up those plans, preserving the multibillion-dollar meat industry’s power over the smaller turkey farmers whose birds will grace the tables in millions of American homes this Thanksgiving.

Horst is one of the independent businessmen caught up in the Trump administration’s governmentwide deregulation frenzy.

Obama-era rules that had yet to take effect would have given smaller farmers more power to set the terms of their deals with massive meat companies, empowering the growers to sue and better define abusive practices by processors and distributors under federal law. Trump’s Agriculture Department killed two of the proposed rules, one of which would have taken effect in October.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/22/turkey-farmers-trump-agriculture-rules-256169

[Historic NY]

1. Wonder if he was one of them rural Trump voters.

[Achilleaze]

2. "Shut up you noisy proles, and eat your industrial meat ration." - KGOP RepubliCorp, Inc.

[rurallib]

3. one of those little stories that most media ignore

but it will severely hurt some folks and certainly consolidate more power in a few hands.

Bastards

[Farmer-Rick]

4. Well, the Obama rules never went into affect

At least not here in TN.

The farmers who make deals with the monolithic meat corporations here are always struggling, barely making ends meet. They are always having to change feed, buiding layout, price per pound, antibiotics, temp or lights. If they do not make these changes, they are threatened with breach of contract. They are always being forced to shove more livestock into smaller and smaller spaces with less nutritional food.

And because these meat corporations dominate, there is little to no infrastructure for small farmers. Try and find a slaughter house that will take your chickens. I had to go to another state to find a slaughter house. Try and get a good price on feed in small quantities. You end up having to grow your own feed, develop your own legal for resale slaughtering systems, and hunt down markets. The grocery stores wont buy from you, they have contracts with the big corporations, so do schools, so do hospitals, so do chain restaurants...

Sometimes just finding a market is a fulltime job. But I'm sure it's going to get worse before it gets better. It's dangerous to let your farmers all go out of business.