Farmer and author Joel Salatin offered an alternative solution to the threat of oligarchy frequently denounced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). This came during a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) rally in Iowa on Wednesday where Salatin argued that greater freedom for Americans to produce, sell, and choose their food, rather than government intervention, is the answer to corporate dominance in the food industry.
Clive, Iowa—MAHA PAC hosted the October 28 “Get Out the Vote Rally” in Clive, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines, ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. Speakers included Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Republican Iowa gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn, farmer Joel Salatin, also known as the “Lunatic Farmer,” and other Republican candidates, elected officials, and health, consumer, and agricultural advocates.
“We have the cure right now for Senator Bernie Sanders’ oligarchy,” Salatin told attendees. “The answer is not government intervention. We’ve been trying that for 150 years, and look where it’s gotten us.”
“The answer is freedom, and when Americans are as concerned about food freedom as they are gun freedom, we’re going to have a different country,” he continued. “And I’m not saying that to disparage guns. I’m a very happy gun owner, but we have an oligarchy.”
Citing his most recent book, Food Emancipation, Salatin pointed to Tyson Foods’ ownership of numerous food brands, including Ball Park, Hillshire Farm, Jimmy Dean, Sara Lee, and State Fair.
“That’s just Tyson’s,” Salatin said. “You ever wonder why, when there’s a food recall, there’s about 25 brands behind the food recall? Why? Because they’ll come from the same spigot.”
“We have choice in the bathroom, choice in the bedroom, choice in the altar. We don’t have choice in the kitchen,” he declared.
“And those who think the government is going to help us must realize that the government has the worst track record for choosing our food,” Salatin continued.
“The government told us to get rid of butter and use margarine and Crisco. The government told us to sprinkle everything with DDT. The government gave us a food pyramid that put Cheerios and Twinkies on the bottom,” he said.
“The government told us to use chemicals like glyphosate. It paid for research that launched genetically modified organisms. It told us raw milk was horrible but cans of coconut was fine, and you better not eat any raw milk,” Salatin continued. “Nothing the government chooses is good.”
“We have a crisis of agricultural succession in this country, and we have a crisis of options for consumers who want to opt out of Walmart and Big Food; those two are identical issues,” Salatin said.
“When a farmer can’t make a living on a farm, when young people can’t get in, old people can’t get out, and we have a crisis of succession in the next 15 years. 50 percent of all America’s agriculture equity, land, buildings, equipment, is going to change hands to another generation. Who’s going to control that?” he continued.
“Right now, 47 percent of all the agricultural land in America is leased. That means whoever’s managing that land doesn’t own it. Almost half the land in the U.S.,” Salatin said.
“No culture has ever gone through this agrarian equity transfer that fast in peace. It’s only happened in conquest,” he said. “If we make this transition peacefully, we will be the first civilization in history to do so.”
“That should be a profound wake-up call to what we need to do to change this transitional succession opportunity,” Salatin continued.
“We’ve got thousands and thousands of young people ready to do something different besides pouring glyphosate down our rivers that are ready to embrace earthworms and actual authentic integrity food without 10,000 dyes and artificial flavorings, and are ready to access their communities with actual integrity, credible, authentic food, real food,” he said.
“But they can’t do it because their dreams of being able to access their neighbors with food is stuck and stigmatized with this plethora of government regulations that make their embryonic dreams too big to be perfect,” Salatin concluded.
Salatin’s remarks challenged Sanders’ approach to combating oligarchy, an issue the Vermont senator has repeatedly emphasized, including during his nationwide “Fighting Oligarchy Tour.”
During a May 7 appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Sanders defended his use of private jets during his “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” after host Bret Baier questioned him about reports that his campaign had spent $221,000 on private jet travel during the tour. “You think I’m going to be sitting on a waiting line at United waiting while 30,000 people are waiting?” Sanders responded. “That’s the only way you can get around. No apologies for that. That’s what campaign travel is about. We’ve done it in the past, we’re going to do it in the future.”
Kennedy, who also spoke at Wednesday’s MAHA rally, previously addressed Sanders’ anti-oligarchy rhetoric during a May 12 press conference announcing President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at lowering prescription drug prices. “There has never been a president more willing to stand up to the oligarchs than President Donald Trump,” Kennedy declared, arguing that Congress was “controlled in so many ways by the pharmaceutical industry” and that previous political leaders had failed to deliver on promises to ease prescription drug prices.
Speaking in his personal capacity at Wednesday’s rally, Kennedy also addressed water pollution and the public’s right to clean waterways, declaring that “the air, the water, the wildlife, the wandering animals, the fisheries, the aquifers, they belong to all the people,” rather than “the chemical companies, the fertilizer companies, Big Ag, or anybody else.”
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