Trump agriculture chief: No guarantee small farms can survive: Doesn't sound good. Maybe he can explain why they're giving the finger to (presumably) some of Trump's own base? “They toyed us into being more dependent on their markets than them on us. That’s what the problem has been,” he said. “They can’t expect to come into our country freely and fairly without opening up their markets.” "Yeah! The Chinese baited us into the tariffs!!!!" ... Yikes, Trump admin, just listen to yourselves :(.What, I wonder, allows for our leadership to continually apply such a small-minded solution to such a complex situation?
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said Tuesday in Wisconsin that he’s unsure if small family dairy farms can survive as larger institutions continue to boom.
Perdue defended the White House’s strategy, calling the Chinese “cheaters.”
My wife's cousin's dairy farm went under in 2018. She had 110 head on 160 leased acres. They were $11m in debt. They employed everyone in the family and two or three others. All the cattle went to the butcher. They turned the hearts into bratwurst. It was disgusting.“It’s very difficult on an economy of scale with the capital needs and all the environmental regulations and everything else today to survive milking 40, 50, or 60 or even 100 cows,” he said.