National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) member and pork producer Robert Kluver hosted President Joe Biden at his farm in Northfield, Minn., last Wednesday. Biden was on a tour of the Midwest, touting billions of dollars in aid he recently pledged for rural America.
U.S. President Joe Biden said consolidation in meat processing and retail chains over the decades has hurt U.S. farmers and announced $5 billion in new investments benefiting rural Americans during a visit to a family farm in Minnesota last Wednesday, Reuters reports. Included in those funds is $1.7 billion for “climate-smart” agricultural practices such as planting cover crops that sequester carbon and protect soil and installing riparian buffers to stop soil erosion and protect waterways. Another $1.1 billion is for rural infrastructure.
This trip marked the first stop in what the White House is billing as a two-week “barnstorming” tour, in which 13 top administration officials will visit rural places in 15 states, including election battlegrounds like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona. They will highlight investments in rural communities, where one in five Americans live.
Kluver raises hogs, corn and soybeans. One issue the Dutch Creek Farm owner brought up with the president was the need for more transparency on hog prices, NPPC noted in Capital Update.
Producers rely on price reports produced twice daily by the USDA under the Livestock Mandatory Reporting Act (LMRA). LMRA requires meatpackers to report the prices they pay for cattle, hogs and lambs and other information.
Biden said the investments they are making will result in family farms getting to stay in the family, highlighting his efforts to improve market competition and invest in internet and rural electrification.
“The Kluver family passionately and humbly welcomed President Biden, Secretary Vilsack, Governor Walz, and viewers from across the country onto their farm,” Minnesota Pork Producers Association CEO Jill Resler said in a Capital Update story. “The visit was a unique opportunity to discuss social, environmental, and economic sustainability; opportunities and challenges rural America experiences; and the legacy that multi-generational family farms are working to build every day across this country.”
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