Free Republic

President Biden on Monday will roll out a new plan to target a handful of meatpacking companies that control the bulk of the nation's supply, months after his administration accused the conglomerates of facilitating anti-competitive behavior that has caused meat and poultry prices to skyrocket.Biden will join Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Attorney General Merrick Garland for a virtual White House meeting with farmers and ranchers to announce the administration's plan to tackle rising prices and boost competition industry-wide, including $1 billion in federal funding from the coronavirus relief package to help expand independent meat and poultry processing capacity.The White...

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that only 0.1 percent of coronavirus relief set aside by the Trump administration for American farmers went to Black farmers, according to a Washington Post interview published on Thursday.... “We saw 99 percent of the money going to White farmers and 1 percent going to socially disadvantaged farmers and if you break that down to how much went to Black farmers, it’s 0.1 percent,” Vilsack said. ...The Post notes that only 1.3 percent of American farmers — around 45,000 — are Black...