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Farmers Union considering stronger stand against ag mergers

Oren Jakobson is a diversified organic farmer and second-year law student from Custer, Wisconsin serving on the National Farmers Union’s policy committee.  He says delegates will vote on an even stronger policy against ag mergers and market concentration pressuring the family farmers. “I’m hearing from farmers across the country, as I was just talking to a woman from Texas and another guy from Colorado that there’s a lot of tension around where the markets are going.”

The National Farmers Union is considering an even stronger stand for revised antitrust laws.

And, Jakobson is concerned that repairing America’s antitrust laws will be extremely difficult. “Maybe it’s actually the mergers and consolidations in every other industry that are setting most of the precedents. By the time we start talking about agricultural mergers, it’s too late because the legal framework is set up as we’re looking at the tech industry, and as we’re looking at all of these other industries that farmers are not strongly engaged in.”

Jakobson says without stricter enforcement of antitrust laws, input costs will rise without competition and more farms will disappear.  The National Farmers Union delegates will vote Tuesday on this special order, plus others on biofuels, trade, improvements to the farm safety net, and climate change.

UPDATE: Farmers Union delegates did strengthen their policy against ag mergers during the delegate meetings. Jakobson discussed policy and his views on how farmers can diversify and market what they grow during this interview at the National Farmers Union convention in Belleview, Washington.