May, 12 2020, 12:00am EDT
New Research Shows Alarming Impacts of Corporate Agriculture Industry in America
As large meat and poultry producers buckle under COVID-19 outbreaks, report exposes deepening consolidation in factory farm industry.
WASHINGTON
As the country's meat and poultry industries increasingly fail consumers and workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, new research from the advocacy group Food & Water Watch exposes the alarming spread of corporate dominance in America's meat, poultry, dairy and egg industries. With the perils of consolidation now becoming apparent as plants become pandemic hotspots, farmers euthanize cattle and dump product, and store shelves across the country sit bare, the new report details the deepening expansion and consolidation among America's largest corporate factory farms (also known as concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs).
The new report, "Factory Farm Nation: 2020," reveals the stark impacts of recent consolidation in the food industry, including:
- A 14 percent increase - representing more than 190 million animals - in U.S. factory farm stock from 2012 to 2017.
- An 82 billion-pound increase in annual factory farm manure waste - three times the weight in human sewage produced by New York City each year - from 2012 to 2017.
- The loss of nearly 10,000 family-run dairies (those with fewer than 500 head) from 2012 to 2017.
- A 70 percent increase in the real consumer cost of ground beef over 20 years, while farmer income continues to decline.
"It's a shame that it takes a global pandemic to focus needed attention on the dangerous state of our food system in America. Due to reckless corporate consolidation and dominance in the meat and dairy industries over recent years, our country's food production and supply chains have been put in peril by a small handful of giant companies that prioritize profit over food safety, worker safety, sustainability and consumer choice," said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. "Without bold action by Congress to address the glaring faults in our corporate agriculture system, the current supply disruptions, worker illnesses, family farm crises and rampant pollution of our rural communities will only be the tip of the iceberg."
Legislation in Congress introduced by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is intended to correct many of the existing problems in the agriculture system and put the country on a path to more safe and sustainable food production in- the future. Among other things, the Farm System Reform Act would:
- Place a moratorium on construction of new large factory farms and the expansion of existing ones.
- Hold corporations liable for environmental harm caused by the factory farms that raise their animals.
- Provide a $100 billion voluntary buyout program for contract farmers to transition away from factory farming.
- Strengthen the Packers & Stockyards Act to protect family farmers and ranchers from abusive practices by integrating corporations.
Food & Water Watch mobilizes regular people to build political power to move bold and uncompromised solutions to the most pressing food, water, and climate problems of our time. We work to protect people's health, communities, and democracy from the growing destructive power of the most powerful economic interests.
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The president-elect's advisers are reportedly discussing plans to shrink or eliminate key bank watchdogs, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Dec 13, 2024
President-elect Donald Trump and his advisers are reportedly considering plans to weaken—or abolish altogether—top bank regulators, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
The Wall Street Journalreported Thursday that members of Trump's transition team and the new Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency have asked nominees under consideration to head the FDIC and OCC if the bank watchdogs could be eliminated and have their functions absorbed by the Treasury Department, which is set to be run by a billionaire hedge fund manager and crypto enthusiast.
"Bank executives are optimistic President-elect Donald Trump will ease a host of regulations on capital cushions and consumer protections, as well as scrutiny of consolidation in the industry," the Journal reported. "But FDIC deposit insurance is considered near sacred. Any move that threatened to undermine even the perception of deposit insurance could quickly ripple through banks and in a crisis might compound customer fears."
The Trump team's internal and fluid discussions about the fate of the key bank regulators broadly aligns with Project 2025's proposal to "merge the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Administration, and the Federal Reserve's non-monetary supervisory and regulatory functions."
The FDIC, which is primarily funded by bank insurance premiums, was established during the Great Depression to restore public trust in the nation's banking system, and the agency played a central role in navigating the 2023 bank failures that threatened a systemic crisis.
Observers warned that gutting the FDIC and OCC could catalyze another economic meltdown.
"The next recession starts here," tech journalist Jacob Silverman warned in response to the Journal's reporting.
Eric Rauchway, a historian of the New Deal, wrote that "even Milton Friedman appreciated the FDIC," underscoring the extreme nature of the incoming Trump administration's deregulatory ambitions.
Musk, the world's wealthiest man, is also pushing for the elimination of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency established in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
The Journal noted Thursday that "Rep. Andy Barr, a Republican from Kentucky and Trump ally on the House Financial Services Committee, has backed the plan to eliminate or drastically alter the CFPB and said he wants to get rid of what he calls 'one-size-fits-all' regulation for banks."
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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
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Israel conquered the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 and has illegally occupied it ever since, annexing the seized lands in 1981.
Other countries including France, Russia, and Saudi Arabia have criticized Israel's invasion, while the United States defended the move.
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"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," he said. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together."
Dec 12, 2024
Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
"Look, when we talk about the healthcare crisis, in my view, and I think the view of a majority of Americans, the current system is broken, it is dysfunctional, it is cruel, and it is wildly inefficient—far too expensive," said Sanders (I-Vt.), whose position is backed up by various polls.
"The reason we have not joined virtually every other major country on Earth in guaranteeing healthcare to all people as a human right is the political power and financial power of the insurance industry and drug companies," he told Jacobin. "It will take a political revolution in this country to get Congress to say, 'You know what, we're here to represent ordinary people, to provide quality care to ordinary people as a human right,' and not to worry about the profits of insurance and drug companies."
Asked about Thompson's alleged killer—26-year-old Luigi Mangione, whose reported manifesto railed against the nation's expensive healthcare system and low life expectancy—Sanders said: "You don't kill people. It's abhorrent. I condemn it wholeheartedly. It was a terrible act. But what it did show online is that many, many people are furious at the health insurance companies who make huge profits denying them and their families the healthcare that they desperately need."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system."
"What you're seeing, the outpouring of anger at the insurance companies, is a reflection of how people feel about the current healthcare system," he continued, noting the tens of thousands of Americans who die each year because they can't get to a doctor.
"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," Sanders added. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together and understanding that it is the right of every American to be able to walk into a doctor's office when they need to and not have to take out their wallet."
"The way we're going to bring about the kind of fundamental changes we need in healthcare is, in fact, by a political movement which understands the government has got to represent all of us, not just the 1%," the senator told Jacobin.
The 83-year-old Vermonter, who was just reelected to what he says is likely his last six-year term, is an Independent but caucuses with Democrats and sought their presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020. He has urged the Democratic Party to recognize why some working-class voters have abandoned it since Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress last month. A refusal to take on insurance and drug companies and overhaul the healthcare system, he argues, is one reason.
Sanders—one of the few members of Congress who regularly talks about Medicare for All—isn't alone in suggesting that unsympathetic responses to Thompson's murder can be explained by a privatized healthcare system that fails so many people.
In addition to highlighting Sanders' interview on social media, Congressman Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) pointed out to Business Insider on Wednesday that "you've got thousands of people that are sharing their stories of frustration" in the wake of Thompson's death.
Khanna—a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act, led in the House of Representatives by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—made the case that you can recognize those stories without accepting the assassination.
"You condemn the murder of an insurance executive who was a father of two kids," he said. "At the same time, you say there's obviously an outpouring behavior of people whose claims are being denied, and we need to reform the system."
Two other Medicare for All advocates, Reps. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), also made clear to Business Insider that they oppose Thompson's murder but understand some of the responses to it.
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