Improving the Rural Economy

[Uncle Joe]

Throughout his career, Senator Sanders has successfully fought for innovative rural economic development initiatives, including investments in farm-to-school and farm-to-table initiatives; agri-tourism programs; school gardens; large scale bio-mass fired electric plants; shared agricultural processing and storage facilities; and anaerobic digesters to process cow manure into methane gas.

Senator Sanders understands that agriculture programs need to be counter-cyclical to assure market-derived commodity income at levels that advance and sustain family-scale farming.

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FAMILY FARMS INSTEAD OF FACTORY FARMS
Senator Sanders believes that we need more family farms, not more factory farms.

It is unacceptable that just four corporations control 82% of the nation’s beef cattle market, 85% of soybean processing, and 63% of pork processing. It is unacceptable that there are over 300,000 fewer farmers than there were 20 years ago.

It is unacceptable that the top 10% of farms collect 75% of farm subsidies, while the bottom 62% do not receive any subsidies. We have to adopt policies that will turn this around.

SUPPORTING AGRICULTURE
In 1966, farmers received 40 cents for every dollar Americans spent on food. Today, they only receive 16 cents on the dollar.

As President, Senator Sanders will reverse this trend by:

https://berniesanders.com/issues/improving-the-rural-economy/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=fb01042016