Small farm destruction is big business investment 02/15/2025
Farmers are reeling as tariffs mean fewer products are sold abroad. And at home USAID is not buying farmer surpluses. Charities have fewer resources for aid money and medical and food supplies. Department of Agriculture programs have been defunded. Staff has been sent home. Agencies have been destroyed or decimated. Disease monitoring is halted. Scientists studying increasing crop yields and drought have been fired. Research programs have been slashed or stopped altogether compromising years of research.
The response I hear over and over is how little thought has gone into this slash and burn approach to cutting the budget. No doubt that most of those making decisions have no clue about the cascading ill effects of these idiotic measures. But there is more at play; these small farmers will go broke and sell out their family farms. Many are located in rural areas far from urban centers. These aren't areas slated for development such as shopping centers or neighborhoods. These locations are best suited for agriculture. Further, many have water rights attached.
So, who benefits? Big Ag which gobbles up small farms, but also foreign investors such as the Arab Alfalfa investors currently gaining land and water rights in the Western US. And what is happening now in the Western US? Drought, prolonged, sustained drought. So where will these big money investors come as resources dwindle? East of the Mississippi.
While it may be true that your local ass licking politician has no clue how these cuts affect his constituents, and frankly doesn't care, there are businessmen, foreigners, and wealthy investors of the millionaire, billionaire, and villainaire class who know exactly what to do to profit from this catastrophe for everyday farm families. They are waiting for these farms to go on the market. They will buy up the land and all the water rights and whatever mineral rights there are. They will do what they always do, get rich off the misery of others.
