This past Saturday, Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya met with Iowa Farmers Union members on the Griffieon Family Farm just north of Ankeny. This was one of many stops Bedoya has made as he continues his lawsuit against the Trump administration, which fired him without due cause in March. Bedoya specifically made it a point to return to Iowa and touch on topics that he heard about in similar meetings he had with farmers three years prior. Diminishing business locations and a lack of right-to-repair provisions were among the top issues that farmers in attendance brought to Bedoya’s attention.
Farmers in attendance gave their personal experiences with the issues in rural America. In a particularly poignant account, Sean Dengler from Tama County said that monopolization across the ag machinery sector led him to give up on farming and end the five-generation Dengler farming tradition. Dengler had to make the difficult decision after waiting several days for repairs to be made to his combine while his soybeans continued to dry up.
Bedoya highlighted some of the work they have done already to hopefully make it to where these things don’t need to happen. He said his team sued Kroger and Albertsons over their business merger, sued Corteva and Syngenta over alleged anticompetitive practices, and sued John Deere for the farmer’s right to repair their equipment.
Bedoya added that they revived the Robinson-Patman Act, also known as the Anti-Price Discrimination Act, which aims to level the playing field for smaller businesses by preventing larger firms from using their purchasing power to gain unfair advantages.
For more information, visit iowafarmersunion.org.
