Summary
- J.D.
Scholten wants to break food supply monopolies. - Says few companies control over 40% market share.
- Calls for federal support of small and medium farmers.
- Criticizes current farm policies favoring large
agribusinesses. - Advocates
reforms to help Iowa’s agricultural sector thrive.
According to Scholten, just approximately 14% of
every dollar that Americans spend on food goes to farmers, and 90% of Iowa hog
farms have closed in the last 40 years. Additionally, Scholten is advocating
for increased federal funding for locally produced food and on-farm
conservation measures.
“They say if…just a few companies control 40% of
the market share, that’s considered a monopoly,”
Scholten said late this morning.
“Well, we’re far beyond that.
We are living in the second ‘Gilded Age.’”
Scholten said.
“…We haven’t had a real Farm Bill since 2018 and they just
continue to kick the can down the road and the status quo isn’t working for
most Iowa farmers.”
Today, Scholten published a comprehensive
agriculture policy platform while touring a farm in central Iowa. The system
needs to be changed, he added, citing statistics that show 70% of USDA
commodity payments go to 10% of the wealthiest farm companies. Scholten is
likewise dubious of farm check-off schemes that demand that farmers contribute
a percentage of their commodity sales proceeds.
Scholten said the federal government should have
never allowed pork producer Smithfield to be purchased by a Chinese company or
allowed Brazil-based JBS to buy Swift and other meatpacking companies. He’s
also calling for rejection of Union Pacific’s acquisition of the Norfolk
Southern railroad and changes that would make it easier for farmers to get a
commercial trucking license.
“There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution to all
of this,”
Scholten told reporters.
“If there was, I think it’d be done
already.”
Scholten expressed his frustration that the
Obama Administration did not take greater action to combat agricultural
monopolies. Additionally, he takes issue with the first Trump Admiration’s
choice to place the nation’s top anti-monopoly enforcers in the organization
they are meant to oversee.
Scholten is one of several Democrats running for
the U.S. Senate seat that is now occupied by Republican Joni Ernst. In 2026,
her term will end.
How does Scholten plan to dismantle food supply monopolies to
support small farmers?
Scholten emphasizes stronger enforcement of
existing antitrust laws to break up the dominant agribusiness companies that
control meatpacking, seed, and fertilizer markets. He believes breaking these
monopolies is the first crucial step to creating a fairer playing field for
small and medium farmers.
He advocates building local and regional food
systems by investing in infrastructure that enables markets closer to home—for
example, farm-to-school, farm-to-hospital, and farm-to-military food supply
chains.
This would create more stable and localized
demand for small farmers.
