I saw only one clear policy initiative in that whole story.
One such policy is to stand up a federally backed land trust to buy land from retiring farmers that would then be sold interest-free to farmers of color.
While I can’t really discuss the merits of that idea, surely you have more to offer than just that single idea.
Agricultural policy in the country is a mess and we need a lot of good ideas but not so much hot air.
Protections for workers starts with the workers being legal. You can’t really provide protections for people in the shadow market. You can’t really organize undocumented labor. Workers have the right to organize and employers have the right to hire who they want as long as they are legal.
Bring forward more clear policy ideas and we should talk about them.
Here is one, end the ethanol requirements for fuels. It makes very little sense to require ethanol in fuels. There are better ways to help farmers.
Sadly we have too many dairy farms. I used to be close friends with a dairy farmer. I moved away and lost touch. I would hate to hurt them but the dairy subsidies are just encouraging something that needs to be discouraged. I think maybe this pandemic might push some of them out of business but that unnecessary pain is the result of not dealing with this problem earlier. End dairy subsidies/milk price controls.
You wrote:
In Nebraska, for instance, the average farm debt was $1.3 million in 2017.
So the average Nebraska farm is in debt for a little more than half the value of the land they own. That is like having your mortgage half paid off. So that is not the appalling statistic you seem to imply. If you look at it a little differently, they could sell out their farm and pocket $1.1 million.
Of course averages can be deceiving.
Imagine if everyone cut there meat consumption in half. How devastating would that be to farmers?
TEK
