collapsedsquid:

President Donald Trump’s agriculture secretary said Tuesday during a stop in Wisconsin that he doesn’t know if the family dairy farm can survive as the industry moves toward a factory farm model.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told reporters following an appearance at the World Dairy Expo in Madison that it’s getting harder for farmers to get by on milking smaller herds.

“In America, the big get bigger and the small go out,” Perdue said. “I don’t think in America we, for any small business, we have a guaranteed income or guaranteed profitability.”

[…]

“What I heard today from the secretary of agriculture is there’s no place for me,” Volenec told reporters. “Can I get some support from my state and federal government? I feel like we’re a benefit to society.”

Getting bigger at the expense of smaller operations like his is “not a good way to go,” said Darin Von Ruden, president of Wisconsin Farmers Union and a third generation dairy farmer who runs a 50-cow organic farm.

“Do we want one corporation owning all the food in our country?” he said to reporters.

In addition to just a tool to win votes you sort of assume the farming support is a way the GOP tries to cultivate their voterbase but I guess now they just say “go fuck yourself“

When Margaret Thatcher acquired her “Milk Snatcher” nickname for sponsoring legislation to end free school milk, the context was that what had started as a wartime nutrition supplement had turned into a dairy subsidy program whereby local authorities drew on a blank check from Westminster to prop up small local operations