Six Democratic presidential candidates vow to help farmers, battered by low prices, trade disputes

Donnelle Eller | The Des Moines Register

GRINNELL, Ia. — Six Democratic presidential candidates vowed Friday to help struggling rural communities and the farmers on whom they rely.

Iowa farmers have been battered by ongoing trade disputes, mega-mergers that have shrunk suppliers, and a dwindling piece of the consumer dollar.

"Farmers are being squeezed on all sides — squeezed by consolidation, giving folks fewer and fewer places to buy from … and squeezed by a trade war that no one here asked for," Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, told members of the Iowa Farmers Union, which held its annual meeting in Grinnell.

The group's leaders interviewed presidential candidates — Buttigieg, former U.S. Rep. John Delaney, activist Tom Steyer and U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar — during the four-hour event Friday evening.

Sanders of Vermont said too few people are talking about "one of the greatest crises" the country faces, "not only the decline of family-based agriculture … but the decline of rural America."

"People whose families have owned farms for generations and generations … are being forced off their land because the prices they're getting for their commodities are nowhere near the cost of production," Sanders said.

Nationally, farm bankruptcies rose 24% to 580 filings in September, compared to a year earlier, the American Farm Bureau Federation reported. It's the highest level since 676 filings in 2011.

"What's going on now is just not acceptable," said Sanders, promising to appoint an agriculture secretary who comes from a family farm. "That secretary will be dedicated to rebuilding rural America."

MORE AGRICULTURE NEWS FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL

Klobuchar of Minnesota said she worked with U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, to prevent farm assistance from going to wealthy landowners who are not actively involved in farming. "We focused the aid on smaller farmers, and stop payments from going to the Beverly Hills, 90201 area code," she said.

Klobuchar and others criticized President Donald Trump's handling of farm issues — from ongoing trade disputes with China to administration waivers provided the oil industry to blend ethanol and biodiesel into the nation's fuel supply.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has granted 85 waivers to oil refineries, freeing them from using 4 billion gallons of renewable fuel. The exemptions have killed demand for 1.4 billion bushels of corn used to make ethanol, industry officials say.

"As we've looked at what has happened in rural America in just the last two years ... Donald Trump is treating farmers like poker chips in one of his bankrupted casinos," Klobuchar said.

Because of the trade disputes, farmers have been cut off from their largest trade partners, which have responded to U.S. tariffs on their products with duties that have largely targeted American farm goods. It's crushed exports and depressed prices for soybeans, corn, pork, milk and other products.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided $28 billion in farm assistance since 2018 to help offset the ag losses.

Steyer said he'd get rid of U.S. tariffs on China and other countries his first day in office. "It's a complete failure. It's hurting Americans. It's hurting farmers."

► MORE: At a presidential forum in Waterloo, the work of mayors gets all the attention

"This trade war is decimating rural America," said Delaney of Maryland. "In small towns all over this country, they're shrinking, they're aging. It's putting enormous pressure on public education.

"It's putting enormous pressure on health care," he said.

"We need policies that create private capital and public capital flowing to these communities," Delaney said. "We need to reignite entrepreneurship and small business in rural America. That's our salvation for these communities."

Booker of New Jersey said he would work to rebuild relationships with trade partners that are now strained because of ongoing disputes.

"Our farmers — when they have a fair playing field — can compete and win globally," Booker said, adding that the president should have worked with U.S. allies to win trade concessions from China.

"We have a common cause with the (European Union). We have a common cause with Canada," he said. The president "turned around and put tariffs on our allies."

Despite the criticism and the impact on Iowa, three-quarters of registered Republicans in the state support the president's approach to trade with China, according to a Des Moines Register/CNN/Mediacom Iowa Poll in November.

The poll surveyed 502 registered Republicans who do not plan to caucus for Democrats in 2020.

Sanders and other candidates promised to fight continued consolidation in agriculture. Five of the largest seed and chemical companies merged in 2015 and 2016.

"Agribusiness prospers, family farmers get driven off of the land, and in some cases farmers are doing terrible things because of the agony they're going through," he said.

"We can no longer tolerate the top 10% of farms in this country, the biggest farms, receiving 77% of all government subsidies. We're going to turn that around," Sanders said.

Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register. Reach her at deller@registermedia.com or 515-284-8457.