Open Markets Responds to Agriculture Secretary Perdue's Attacks on Small Farmers
Washington, DC -- The below is a statement from Claire Kelloway, Reporter & Researcher at Open Markets Institute, regarding Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue's comment "In America, the big get bigger and the small go out."
There is nothing natural or inevitable about consolidation in agriculture. Farmers are pushed to get big or get out because of policies that enable predatory monopolies to strip wealth from farmers. Big Ag squeezes out the smallest players by driving up the cost of doing business and pushing down the prices farmers receive.
Secretary Perdue has every ability, today, to enact policies that would crack down on the abusive agriculture monopolies that are pushing out small producers and independent family farms.
Read Open Markets Institute's comprehensive report on the monopolization of agriculture, "Food and Power: Addressing Monopolization in America's Food System" here.
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