Farmers’ Beef With Trump Over ‘Big Meat’

Last week the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it was delaying implementation of an Obama administration rule designed to give America’s farmers more leverage in their dealings with mammoth agriculture companies that control almost every aspect of their livelihoods, so-called Big Meat.

The move, though not out of the ordinary for an incoming administration, is seen by farmer advocacy groups as a sign Trump is bending to the will of the industry, which strongly opposes the rule. The decision comes as Sonny Perdue III, the president’s pick for Secretary of Agriculture, is likely to be confirmed next week. Perdue is the former governor of Georgia, the country’s top chicken producing state, and has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from agribusiness, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics. And finally, Trump has proposed a 21 percent budget cut to the USDA, provoking an outcry from agricultural groups that worry rural communities will be hurt most.

Those communities were a driving force in putting Trump in the White House. After the latest pro-industry decision, some say they are having buyer’s remorse.

The rules at issue have been a long time in the making. In 2008, the then-Democratic-controlled Congress pushed forward a mandate to make the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921, an antitrust law aimed at the meatpacking industry, more enforceable. But beginning in 2011, Republicans refused to fund the rules’ completion or implementation. Finally (after a scathing send-up of the poultry industry by comedian John Oliver in 2015), the rules received their long-awaited funding, and the USDA went through the rulemaking process to accept public comments and sent the proposals out the door.