Aide Memoire: Senator Bernie Sanders' Project to Develop Agricultural and Rural Policies

Bernie Sanders on Sunday released a comprehensive agriculture and agriculture plan targeting big business and calling for more federal investment in struggling rural areas.

What is the reason for this plan?

Appearing at a county fair in Osage, Iowa, Sanders explained that liberal politics in Republican strongholds are vital to saving a declining agricultural economy and communities in distress.

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"Some people are ripping off rural America," said Sanders, one of the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidency. He was introduced by several local farmers before they happened.

"But I come from one of the most rural and beautiful states in the United States," said the Vermont senator. "I will not write rural America."

Sanders is the second candidate, after Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), To make a serious commitment to conquer traditionally red regions by deploying comprehensive political plans to restructure government programs and strengthen law enforcement. antitrust.

That comes as farmers' incomes continue to fall, falling to their lowest level since 2016 this quarter, the Commerce Department said this week. Farmers, for their part, continue to be hit by retaliatory tariff measures following President Donald Trump's global trade war.

What would he do?

Mr Sanders said on Sunday that he thought the rapid consolidation of the agricultural sector was causing economic problems for farmers, and called for mega-mergers to be dissociated. He also called for the establishment of a ban on future mergers of large agricultural enterprises, as well as the prohibition of vertical combinations.

"In rural America, we see giant agribusiness conglomerates extracting as much wealth as possible from small communities while family farmers go bankrupt and are treated in many ways as modern contract servants," said Sanders. .

He also called for a "right to repair" law that gives farmers the ability to repair their own equipment, something that some farmers currently forbid.

He also attacked "factory farms" by promising to remove their exemption for air emissions and to regulate them under the Clean Air Act as factories.

Who would benefit the most?

According to Sanders, independent family farmers need more support from the government. The plan aims to reform the subsidy system so that small, medium-sized family farms receive more federal funding than larger producers. He suggests moving away from a subsidy system and moving to a "system of parity", which "means setting floor prices and matching supply to the demand to guarantee farmers the cost of production and living expenses of the family. "

Referring to the crisis in the dairy sector, Sanders said he wanted to put in place supply management programs to prevent shortages or surpluses of commodities and to guarantee farmers a wage. basic. Dairy farmers are facing disastrous circumstances due in part to an overabundance of milk and declining demand – dairy bankruptcies continue to increase rapidly.

What about trade and climate change?

In a direct refutation to the Trump administration, Sanders said the government's trade policies should not hurt farmers and called for "business partnerships" that not only benefit multinationals at the expense of producers.

Citing industry contributions to climate change, Sanders said agriculture could be part of the solution by playing a major role in reducing the country's greenhouse gas emissions. It wants to encourage farmers to move to more environmentally friendly activities and adopt more sustainable practices, which would include providing subsidies, technical assistance and debt relief to producers.

Who else would it help?

the plan It extends beyond agriculture and into rural communities by proposing to increase investments in rural education and health care. Sanders calls for an increase in rural teachers' salaries and resources for students, such as ESL and college accreditation.

Additional funds should be used to build health care infrastructure in rural areas such as hospitals, maternity hospitals, mental health clinics and addiction treatment centers, the plan says.

Holly Otterbein contributed to this report.