The Progressive reports:
“Michael Pollan, in a sorrow-tinged New York Times account in 2016, detailed how President Barack Obama failed to break Big Ag’s stranglehold on farmers, even though, as an outsider candidate in the 2008 Iowa caucuses, he knew the problem well. When he left office eight years later, the stranglehold was tighter than ever.
“As Pollan wrote, farmers are often captive to a small number of giant processors and purveyors that control particular branches of the industry: beef slaughtering, chicken packaging, corn and soy processing, agrochemical sales, and seed selling. Dairy farmers have their own special hell with what’s called “monopsony”—having only a single powerful buyer in their region to process their perishable raw milk.”