New Administration Could Help Farmers by Addressing Meat Industry Monopolies

By Trimmel Gomes

As inflation and falling crop prices continue to affect Virginia farmers, their advocates said the incoming Trump administration could take steps to reform the nation's industrial agriculture system.

Ideas include ending foreign farmland ownership, blocking a U.S. Department of Agriculture rule mandating farmers use electronic ID tags on livestock and ending lobbying by global food corporations. The latest federal data show net farm income dropped by more than 4% this year, after declining by nearly 20% in 2023.

Joe Maxwell, chief strategy officer for Farm Action, said voters overwhelmingly support reforms to break up major corporations' hold on the nation's food system.

"Eighty-eight percent of rural voters in battleground states during this last election cycle say they would be more favorable toward a candidate who supports cracking down on meat-processing monopolies and ensuring local businesses can compete," Maxwell reported.

Maxwell predicted food producers will likely be hit harder by President Donald Trump's tariff plan. This month, Congress passed a one-year extension of the 2018 Farm Bill, with $10 billion in economic aid to farmers and temporary funding for federal farm programs.

Chris Newman, cofounder of Blackbird Farms near Colonial Beach, views monopolies in meat processing as a critical issue. As a poultry integrator, he supports bringing back the Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program, which provided millions in grants to independent businesses before ending last year.

"That pumped a lot of money, I believe tens of millions of dollars, into the expansion and the creation of new, smaller and more regionally oriented meat processors," Newman recounted. "There'd be more competition in these areas and so, more businesses like mine would be able to spin up and offer some competition to the big integrators like JBS, Smithfield, etc."

Maxwell added a new Farm Bill would offer a chance to make major changes to benefit small farmers and consumers, and boost local supply chains.