Commentary: As Farm Bill Stalls, New Legislation Emerges Tackling Unfair Markets in Agriculture

The Senate Agriculture Committee failed to advance a new Farm Bill last week, leaving the legislation three years overdue while farmers face rising costs, debt, and climate disruption. In the vacuum, several narrower bills have emerged targeting corporate concentration in beef, dairy, seeds, and farmland — issues both the House-passed bill and the stalled Senate version largely ignore.

Four companies control 85% of the beef sector, and a Minnesota judge just allowed an antitrust price-fixing case against major meatpackers to proceed. New House and Senate bills would cap concentration levels, bar meatpackers from operating across multiple protein segments, and direct the FTC to police discriminatory pricing that squeezes independent grocers.

Similar bills target seed patents, held overwhelmingly by two companies, and dairy consolidation, which has wiped out nearly three-quarters of small and midsized dairy farms since 2000. Meanwhile the Trump administration delayed Biden-era rules protecting farmers from retaliatory corporate practices, prompting a rare joint rebuke from the country's two largest farm groups, even as it sped up permitting for a fertilizer giant, backed a chemical company before the Supreme Court, and reopened the Mexican cattle border over screwworm objections.

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