As the Trump administration, working in concert with fossil fuel organized disinformation campaigns at the local level, slows the construction of clean energy projects, farmers who desperately want those solar, wind and battery projects on their land, to diversify their income, are being squeezed by catastrophic agricultural policies and tariffs, which have collapsed US farmer’s access to global markets.
Looking across the whole economy, it’s as if the Trump administration was a precision guided heat seeking missile aimed at destroying the most important sectors of American power and influence, and it’s working.
Current economic conditions and Trump administration policies could lead to “a widespread collapse of American agriculture,” a bipartisan coalition of former Agriculture Department officials and leaders of farm groups warned in a letter on Tuesday.
The letter to the heads and ranking members of the House and Senate agricultural committees was signed by 27 influential figures in the farming sector, including former heads of powerful associations representing corn and soybean farmers and officials from the Bush and Reagan administrations. It expressed dismay at the “damage done to American farmers.”
While there are many reasons for increasing farm bankruptciesand decreasing profits, “it is clear that the current administration’s actions, along with congressional inaction, have increased costs for farm inputs, disrupted overseas and domestic markets, denied agriculture its reliable labor pool, and defunded critical ag research and staffing,” the letter warned.
The signatories called on Congress to relax tariffs for the agriculture sector, expand international markets, pass a new farm bill and restore funding for agriculture research and staffing.
