Launched in 2022, the program was set up to provide grants and other funding for sustainable farming practices that keep carbon in the soil, prevent deforestation, and other measures. The price tag, just over $3 billion, was unusually high for a “pilot program,” surpassing the annual budgets of other long-standing conservation programs that, at least theoretically, were supposed to support many of the same farming practices.
“Our goal is to … make sure that small and underserved producers reap the benefits of these market opportunities,” Vilsack said at COP27.
But nearly a year later, the top grants have instead been awarded to large corporate interests, including Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and other organizations underwritten by Big Ag. The program is under renewed scrutiny from watchdog groups, which claim the department has provided limited public information about the selection process for applications, the contracts being negotiated with grant recipients, and the criteria for what exactly constitutes “climate smart.”
“We don’t need USDA facilitating a pay-to-pollute carbon scheme that only goes to benefit big operations,” said Rebecca Wolf, senior policy director at Food & Water Watch.
Nakedly corrupt trash like this is exactly why it’s so infuriating when Biden supporters try to back up their bullshit claims about him being so progressive by pointing to the Inflation Reduction Act and American Rescue Plan. Ten years from now we’re not going to have made anywhere near the progress we should have on climate change, the rich will be even richer, and moderate Dems will just say “Nobody could have known those Fortune 500 companies were all ripping off taxpayers so badly back then, but this new subsidy is different.”
All the ag stuff “supporting farmers” has just been code for dumping money the way of huge corporate farms for decades. If it wasn’t they’d put specific exemptions in these bills for large corporations getting the bulk of the money.
People need to realize what’s going on here. All politicians care about for ag bills is keeping food costs stable/down. Food costs are a huge deal for inflation which has so many knock on effects for the economy. They don’t care how it happens. This has just led to corporate welfare for big ag. The government basically brides them and inflates their stock value so they won’t gouge us to heavily.
Big ag has gotten so good at funneling these government funds that no one can compete with them and they’re now the only game in town. This is such a problem and we just seem to almost ignore it as a society. No one talks about all the reasons this is bad in political platforms, no one is making it an issue.
I’m not a vegan, but I could find some common ground with them on some farm reform. For reasons they would not enjoy… Chicken in America tastes like shit. Factory farming and this race to the bottom in quality of every area of food in this country have led to terrible, terrible tasting food.
Produce, meat, and everything else at the grocery store gets bought and sold on looks, uniformity and shelf life. The few large companies competing in every market just try to make the biggest heaviest apple, chicken breast, watermelon etc that looks good. How it tastes doesn’t even matter. You don’t find out until you get home.
Most people don’t really notice because all they buy is food from one of th big grocery store chains and they don’t offer anything else. That food quality has declined so badly. But it’s been gradual so most folks don’t notice it. If we had more local farmers who cared about their product, I can guarantee we wouldn’t be eating such terrible tasting food with the extremely limited varieties we do. It’d probably cost more, but maybe we wouldn’t be as fat and unhealthy.
