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US: Dem nominees agree on breaking up Big Ag

By  |  March 31, 2019

Democratic presidential contenders Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar expressed support Saturday, March 30, for strengthening antitrust laws and enforcement to break up big agriculture monopolies, reported the Boston Herald.

“You’ve got these giant corporations that are making bigger and bigger profits … and they’re putting the squeeze on family farms and small farms,” Warren said at the Heartland Forum, which was focused on rural issues.

The US senator from Massachusetts called for breaking up some of the biggest farming corporations “so that they not only do not have that kind of economic power, so that they’re wiping out competition, so they’re taking all the profits for themselves … but also so that they don’t have that kind of political power.”

While supporting an antitrust approach, Klobuchar, a senator and Minnesota Democrat, also proposed putting a fee on corporate mergers to help investigate noncompetitive practices.

“If we stifle competition through monopolies, we’re not just going to bring up the prices for consumers, we’re going to stifle entrepreneurship,” she said.

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