America’s family farmers were astonished last year to get a jolly tweet from the President of the United States: “Have fun!” exclaimed The Donald.

Fun? The farm economy is in the ditch, with crop prices at depression levels and bankruptcies surging. Plus, Trump Inc. has been rigging the law to give agribusiness monopolies more power to run roughshod over farmers and rural communities.

Well, yes, say the billionaire “geniuses” and partisan hacks who’ve seized control of farm and food policies, but our phantasmagoric laissez-fairyland ideology will open up new agricultural markets here at home, so see? Fun!

Those ideologues, however, can’t make chicken salad out of chicken manure, and that’s what their promises are. While Brooke Rollins, Trump’s corporatized ag secretary, babbles about “new” markets—but she actually shut down a nationwide market last year that provided a billion dollars a year to family farmers who produce for local schools, food pantries, etc. In reality, Rollins’ goal is an industrialized, globalized food economy, so she coldly dismissed these local sales as “nonessential.” Of course, that says to all of the people involved that her government considers them nonessential.

Combining arrogance with ignorance, Trump’s aloof plutocrats carelessly wiped out this market right at spring planting time! Each farm family had already taken out thousands of dollars in bank loans to buy seeds and other essential supplies to make this year’s crop, but—WHAMMO!—Trump & Co. slammed the door on the family’s most reliable market, shoving them to the brink of broke… and beyond.

This is what happens when clueless billionaires are brought in to make our public programs “efficient.” Corporate rule is never efficient—and it sure ain’t fun.

Do something!

* Our friends at Farm Action “expose monopoly power through research, investigations, and public education to protect farmers and our food.” Right up our alley! farmaction.us

* The National Farmers Union does a ton of great federal advocacy, and each of their state chapters is even more badass. nfu.org

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