Many farmers depend on expensive machinery to help them do daily tasks like planting seeds, fertilizing, and harvesting crops.

But even though tractors and other equipment can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, farmers often can't fix them themselves. When a new tractor has mechanical problems, software tools are often required to fix them.

But equipment manufacturers won't sell those tools to farmers, which makes it extremely difficult for them to make repairs on their own.

uspirg.org/feature/usp/de…

Bill Gates is now the largest private owner of farmland in the U.S., with 242,000 acres (about 1/3 the size of Rhode Island).

Why is this a problem? We briefly explain some concerns about growing investments in U.S. farmland in this thread 🧵:

forbes.com/sites/arielsha… Bill Gates isn't the only wealthy investor buying up farmland.

Currently, according to @Farmland, almost 40% of cropland is owned by non-farming landowners, who rent it out to farmers.

farmland.org/american-farml…

155 years ago, the last slaves in the U.S. were freed.

They were promised "40 acres & a mule," a path to financial independence. But this promise was broken, ultimately depriving Black Americans hundreds of billions worth of wealth.
nfu.org/2020/06/19/jun… #JUNETEENTH2020 As a result, many former slaves were forced into sharecropping. Landowners were known to charge unfairly high interest rates and intentionally underpay sharecroppers, keeping them in an endless cycle of debt and poverty.

npr.org/sections/codes…

In response to our press release last week on racism and police brutality, we've heard from several people saying that this is "not an agricultural issue."

But we disagree. Agriculture, like many industries, is rife with racism. It is our responsibility to fight that racism. Here are some ideas for how to do that:

1. Educate yourself about racism in agriculture.

There are several excellent books on the subject - we recommend Farming While Black by Leah Penniman, Freedom Farmers by Monica White, and Dispossession by Pete Daniel.

A question we've been hearing a lot recently is "How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting food and agriculture?" The answer is complicated. But this thread provides a small snapshot of what's going on. First - there isn't a food shortage - there's a distribution problem. Usually, ~1/2 of food is purchased at grocery/retail stores, and ~1/2 is purchased away from home at restaurants, schools, hotels, etc. But now, almost all food consumption has shifted to the first category.

A bipartisan report says that this administration's efforts to undermine & politicize research - including the relocation of NIFA & ERS - has pushed federal science to a crisis.
“Science shouldn’t be swayed by whether someone is liberal or conservative.”
nytimes.com/2019/10/03/cli… @nytimes @nytclimate @LFFriedman @RudyMehrbani @WendyRWeiser @BrennanCenter @PreetBharara Farmers rely on the data provided by ERS to make important business decisions, and legislators rely on it to develop effective farm and food policy - but because of the relocation, 75% of the agency's staff have retired, quit, or were terminated. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…