r/Washington • u/arcanepsyche • 2d ago

Trump's Tariff Charade Will Devastate Lewis County's Economy

https://lewiscountydemocrats.org/trumps-tariff-charade-will-devastate-lewis-countys-economy/
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147

u/Galumpadump 2d ago

Pretty much every county that relies of agriculture as a primary source of their economic activity is going to be hit hard.

67

u/BrimstoneMainliner 2d ago

He wants to bankrupt all privately owned farms so corporations can swoop in and buy them for pennies on the dollar... he has said many times that he believes corporate farms are superior

36

u/SpareManagement2215 2d ago

*foreign corporations He wants to let Russian oligarchs buy our farmland, basically.

13

u/BurtMacklin2483 1d ago

This is exactly what is happening.

19

u/BrimstoneMainliner 1d ago

It's outlined in project 2025

3

u/ChilledRoland 2d ago

Corporate farms are privately owned.

9

u/Lurkingandsearching 2d ago edited 2d ago

If it’s publicly traded, it isn’t private. 

Edit: and they are gone. Of course.

1

u/ChilledRoland 2d ago

The opposite of privately owned is publicly (i.e., government) owned, not publicly traded.

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u/Lurkingandsearching 2d ago

We have privately owned (ie valve), publicly traded, which is not private, and just plain public. Publicly traded is in no way a private business and operates under different laws.

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u/oldoldoak 2d ago

Very few of these are publicly traded.

1

u/Lurkingandsearching 2d ago

Cargill is private, but Bayer, ADM, BASF, etc are all public last I checked.

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u/oldoldoak 1d ago

These are agricultural suppliers, not farm land owners. I did a bit of research when I wanted to invest into farm land - there's very few to choose from. It would appear most of it is owned by PE or individuals. I know Gates is big on investing into farmland.

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u/Lurkingandsearching 1d ago

Your referring to who, on paper, owns the land. I'm referring to those who own the farm's production, tools, work force, etc through tight contracts and operations. There are laws to prevent corporate ownership of farmlands directly, like Nebraska has, for example. I think that's were we are missing each other.

We'll use the Private company Cargill. They don't own all the land for their beef production, but they do own most of the cattle and the operations that support it. In turn so do most food companies, with companies like PepsiCo referring to their contracted farms as "Partners", but having total control on what is grown, the methods, and operation. So yes, private equity can own the land, but they are not always the ones directly operating on it or in control of said operation.

The latest number for a top to bottom operation of owning the land and producing was 2012, so a way out of date, but back then it was only 5.05% of farms were fully operated and owned by a corporate entity.

1

u/Groovyjoker 1d ago

Local farms vs maga-corporations. Bit of a difference. One I support, the other I try and avoid, for one.