Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
Concentration and vertical integration in agriculture have long been named as reasons the number of family farms in Iowa continue to dwindle and large corporate agribusinesses continue to merge and dominate the marketplace.
The problem may soon receive some attention, as Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley introduced a bill today aimed at addressing the problems of concentration and vertical integration in agriculture.
The bill, co-sponsored by Wisconsin Democrat Herb Kohl and South Dakota Republican John Thune, would change current anti-trust laws and direct the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to draft agriculture-specific guidelines regarding agribusiness mergers.
In a conference call with reporters this week, Grassely said the bill would also create an “agriculture competition task force” to assist in drafting the agricultural anti-trust guidelines and “coordinate activities to address anti-competitve practices.”
Grassley and others in Congress have attempted to address agriculture concentration in the past but have had little success in passing serious reforms. “This is more sweeping than things in the past,” he said. “Establishing separate agricultural anti-trust guidelines is a completely new concept.”
When asked if he thought the bill had a chance of passing Congress, Grassley replied, “Well, it’ll be controversial, of course. And I think it’s dramatic enough that I’d expect it to be controversial. And I welcome the controversy because I think these issues are not talked about enough, and I’ll have to wait and see how people react to it. But I hope that the fact that it’s bipartisan, and that Sen. Kohl is in the majority, will help us move it along.”
Grassley said he hopes Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who chairs the Senate agriculture committee, “will give this bill a hard look when the farm bill is being considered.”
“I don’t doubt that Sen. Harkin would support the substance of what I’m trying to do. I think the only problem he has is he’s chairman of the committee and he has to produce a bill. And he’s going to look at what’s going to keep him from getting a bill out of committee. If this wouldn’t keep him from getting a bill out of committee, or raising too much opposition, I think he would put it in his bill. But if it’s not in his bill, it’s not because he’s opposed to what I’m doing.”
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