(Radio Iowa) – J.D. Scholten, one of the Democrats running for U-S Senate, says it’s time to bust up the monopolies that control America’s food supply and are driving small and medium farmers out of business. “They say if…just a few companies companies control 40% of the market share, that’s considered a monopoly,” Scholten says. “Well, we’re far beyond that. We are living in the second ‘Gilded Age.'”

Scholten says 90 percent of Iowa hog farms have gone out of business in the past 40 years — while farmers only get about 14 percent of every dollar Americans spend on food. Scholten is also calling for more federal support of on-farm conservation practices and locally grown food. “Agriculture is the heartbeat of Iowa. It’s an over $16 billion industry,” Scholten says. “…We haven’t had a real Farm Bill since 2018 and they just continue to kick the can down the road and the status quo isn’t working for most Iowa farmers.”

Scholten visited a central Iowa farm and released a wide-ranging farm policy platform today (Monday). He says 10 percent of the wealthiest farm operations get 70 percent of U-S-D-A commodity payments and that system must be reformed. Scholten’s also skeptical of farm check-off programs that require farmers pay a portion of their profits from the sale of commodities.

“They’re paying so the meatpackers and the corporations can hurt them even more and that just doesn’t make sense,” Scholten says. “…I think we need to have massive reform when it comes to checkoffs.” Scholten says the federal government should have never allowed pork producer Smithfield to be purchased by a Chinese company or allowed Brazil-based J-B-S to buy Swift and other meatpacking companies. He’s also calling for rejection of Union Pacific’s acquisition of the Norfolk Southern railroad and changes that would make it easier for farmers to get a commercial trucking license.

“There’s not a one-size-fits-all solution to all of this,” Scholten says. “If there was, I think it’d be done already.” Scholten says he’s frustrated the Obama Administration didn’t do more to address monopolies in the agricultural sector. And he objects to the first Trump Administration’s decision to move the country’s main anti-monopoly enforcers into the agency they’re supposed to police.