Kansas Rancher Explains How Trump Has ‘Betrayed’ US Farmers: He 'Wont Fight For Us'
Mike Callicrate, an independent cattle rancher from Kansas, has written an editorial for the Washington Post detailing how President Donald Trump’s agricultural policies have been bad news for American farmers.
In his op-ed, Callicrate explains that the consolidation of power among big agribusiness companies is the single biggest problem facing American farmers — and he says Trump’s administration has only made things worse.
“Despite Trump’s campaign promises, when it was time to stand up against big agribusiness, he caved,” he writes. “His actions have left farmers and ranchers such as myself feeling betrayed and afraid for our economic futures.”
Specifically, Callicrate calls out Trump’s Department of Agriculture for overturning the Obama administration’s Farmer Fair Practices Rules, which gave independent farmers more power to bring unfair practice claims against big agribusiness firms.
He also said that Trump Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue had upset farmers by saying that regulations couldn’t do anything to stop big firms from behaving in a predatory fashion, while also imploring farmers to trust conglomerates will “treat everyone fairly and not in a predatory fashion.”
At the end of his piece, Callicrate writes that “if Trump won’t fight for us, we will bring the fight to him.”
