Biden Can Still Win Rural Votes
Millions of voters in farm country are being ignored by both parties
Between 2009 and 2017, while Tom Vilsack was head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 30 percent of Wisconsin’s dairy farms went out of business. So why has he become Joe Biden’s main surrogate in farm country?
Between 2004 and 2016, dairy exports more than quadrupled. That might sound like it’s good for farmers, but if you’re interested in the survival of local dairies — which provide the economic base of some rural communities and are much more inclined to care for the land — it’s exactly the wrong strategy. Exports benefit global agribusinesses and monopoly dairy cooperatives because they help expand world markets. But that new money bypasses U.S. farmers: Exports don’t raise the price of milk, which has stayed so low that only industrial operations can survive.
“In America, the big get bigger and the small go out,” President Donald Trump’s agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue, told a group of Wisconsin farmers last year. In fact, no administration since FDR’s has supported small farmers, and, with Vilsack, Biden’s would be no exception. This isn’t by accident but by design.
No administration since FDR’s has supported small farmers, and, with Vilsack…
