In part one of this two-part blog series, I described the shocking turn of events that made the United States a net food importer for the first time in 60 years. Despite large agricultural lobbying organizations touting free trade as the optimal model for American farmers to sell their crops to the world, the United States is projected to import more food than it exports in 2023 and 2024. Small farms and family farms are losing farmland and market share to massive agribusinesses that attempt to hold entire commodity markets hostage through consolidation.
This grim story begs the question: how have the largest agribusiness interests dominating each commodity, input, and market in agriculture managed to push this losing “free trade agreement” scheme for so long?
The answer lies in a little known but critically important feature of the U.S. trade policymaking regime.
In 1974, when the Nixon administration was trying to limit Congress’ constitutional role in trade policy, it came up with a trade advisory system to receive input from the private sector to inform trade policy decisions. The notion was that if new limits on Congress’ trade authority would mean limits on the ability of every member of Congress to represent their local interest in trade policymaking, those interests needed another means to weigh in.
Today these committees include nearly 500 appointed U.S. trade advisors, most of them representing corporate interests.
These official U.S. trade advisors have access to U.S. trade texts that are kept secret from the press, public, and even most congressional staff. The secretive U.S. trade agreement negotiating process has a method to clue in private interests while locking out taxpayers, the media that could inform the public, and the members of Congress elected to represent the American people in these negotiations.
The combination of extreme secrecy and this corporate-loaded U.S. trade advisory system has given commercial interests a privileged role in developing U.S. trade agreements to the detriment of U.S. farmers, workers, and consumers.
Last year, Rethink Trade did the legwork to measure just how loaded this trade advisory system is. We published an infographic report that shows the extreme corporate interest domination of the official U.S. government trade advisory system.
One of the findings that struck the team was that nearly half of the appointed advisors represent agricultural interests, even as agriculture represents only 5.4% of the U.S. GDP.
So why have our trade policies failed our farmers so badly?
It turns out that most of the advisors represent Big Ag interests.
Corteva Agriscience alone — one of the two seed companies with mass market share in corn and soybeans — has three representatives in the trade advisory system. Cargill, Inc. and Tyson Foods — two of the four major meat processors — have four representatives between the two companies.
Private interests motivated by shareholder profits rather than the well-being and economic security of American farmers and consumers hold a large chunk of the advisory committee seats, meaning they get to call the shots.
Meanwhile, independent farmers and American consumers are suffering under the current system. With very large companies dominating markets and trade policy, farmers’ profits dropping and debt growing, and food inflation ever increasing, it’s time for a change.
Big Ag interests have failed to advocate for agricultural trade policy that works, instead adopting a pro-free trade narrative that ignores both small farmers’ struggles and the United States’ new food importer status.
Rather than trying the same trade models that set farms up for failure, it’s time to redesign both how trade policy is made and what trade terms should be prioritized to deliver for producers and consumers.
