Tag: Sonny Perdue

The land was worth millions. A Big Ag corporation sold it to Sonny Perdue’s company for $250,000.

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It was a curious time for Sonny Perdue to close a real estate deal.

In February 2017, weeks after President Donald Trump selected him to be agriculture secretary, Perdue’s company bought a small grain plant in South Carolina from one of the biggest agricultural corporations in America.

Had anyone noticed, it would have prompted questions ahead of his confirmation, a period when most nominees lie low and avoid potential controversy. The former governor of Georgia did not disclose the deal — there was no legal requirement to do so. Continue reading.

Coronavirus hit meat plants just as workers were being asked to speed up

The coronavirus began to spread through U.S. slaughterhouses this spring just when workers, already performing some of the most dangerous jobs anywhere, were being asked to take more risks by going faster.

Even as the outbreak began to force plants to temporarily close last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture continued granting permission to chicken processors to boost speeds by 25% on production lines. And the agency late last year approved an inspection system that would let pork plants abolish line-speed limits — now set at 1,106 hogs an hour — altogether.

With production reduced at many pork and chicken plants by the outbreak, there’s new scrutiny on the safety and procedures in them, including the line-speed changes that have been decades in the making. Continue reading.

Perdue Using Taxpayer-Funded USDA Podcasts To Promote Trump

Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer used a taxpayer-funded USDA podcast to suck up to their boss, President Donald Trump, and praise his agricultural trade policies, which have left farmers hurting.

Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer used a taxpayer-funded USDA podcast to suck up to their boss, President Donald Trump, and praise his agricultural trade policies, which have left farmers hurting.

Perdue peppered his podcast with Lighthizer, the president’s top trade policy adviser, with his signature praise of Trump. Introducing his guest, Perdue described Trump as “an unapologetic advocate for America around the globe” and said that he wanted to congratulate Lighthizer because he “can’t think of anyone who can support President Trump better than you have in these trade negotiations. You’re tough and you reinforce his ability to use leverage … You’ve been quite a sidekick to the president.”  Continue reading.

Forest Service Opens ‘America’s Amazon’ To Loggers

Trump’s National Forest Service is using a refuted scientific theory to justify building roads in our country’s largest national forest, what some call “America’s Amazon.”

Loggers want to raze trees more than 1,000 years old.

The Forest Service says guidelines from the United Nations’ climate authority would be followed. Two scientists whose research was cited in the U.N. study says the Forest Service is espousing junk science.

Continue reading

Farmers’ Frustration With Trump Grows as U.S. Escalates China Fight

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — Peppered with complaints from farmers fed up with President Trump’s trade war, Sonny Perdue found his patience wearing thin. Mr. Perdue, the agriculture secretary and the guest of honor at the annual Farmfest gathering in southern Minnesota this month, tried to break the ice with a joke.

“What do you call two farmers in a basement?” Mr. Perdue asked near the end of a testy hourlong town-hall-style event. “A whine cellar.”

A cascade of boos ricocheted around the room.

American farmers have become collateral damage in a trade war that Mr. Trump began to help manufacturers and other companies that he believes have been hurt by China’s “unfair” trade practices.

View the complete August 27 article by Alan Rappeport on The New York Times website here.

Trump’s big farmer grift: He’s giving millions to the rich while starving the poor

AlterNet logoDonald Trump loooooves farmers. We know this because he says so. “Farmers, I LOVE YOU!” he declared in December. And we’ve learned that whenever The Donald says something, it’s true — even when it’s not.

These days, he’s loving farmers to death. Trump has ignored the obvious need to get monopolistic price-fixing bankers, suppliers and commodity buyers off their backs. And he’s ineptly playing tariff games with China and other buyers of U.S. farm products, causing exports and farm prices to tumble. The result is that our ag economy is tumbling into a deep ditch, slamming farm families and rural America with a rising tsunami of bankruptcies.

Adding crude insult to economic injury, Trump’s doofus of an ag secretary, Sonny Perdue, laughed at farmers, branding them “whiners” for opposing his majesty’s disastrous policies.

View the complete August 15 article by Jim Hightower from Creators Syndicate on the AlterNet website here.

This Trump plan would strip about 500,000 kids of free school lunches

AlterNet logoThe Trump administration left important information out of its latest attempt to take food aid from millions of poor people: The plan would potentially strip around 500,000 kids of free school lunches. But while the Trump administration was up-front about the 3.1 million people who would be stripped of food stamps under its plan, it didn’t bother to mention what would specifically happen to children.

Kids automatically get free school lunch if their families receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a policy that reduces paperwork and makes sure that kids aren’t deprived of food by parents who are unable to do the paperwork for one reason or another. Trump’s plan to kick 3.1 million people off of food stamps works by taking away states’ ability to adjust eligibility to account for high housing and childcare costs. That’s a way states currently can prevent families from having to choose between a roof over their heads and food on their plates—and it’s something Trump Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue called “abuse of a critical safety net system.”

Kids automatically get free school lunch if their families receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a policy that reduces paperwork and makes sure that kids aren’t deprived of food by parents who are unable to do the paperwork for one reason or another. Trump’s plan to kick 3.1 million people off of food stamps works by taking away states’ ability to adjust eligibility to account for high housing and childcare costs. That’s a way states currently can prevent families from having to choose between a roof over their heads and food on their plates—and it’s something Trump Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue called “abuse of a critical safety net system.”

View the complete July 30 article by Laura Clawson from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.

Trump proposal would push 3 million Americans off food stamps

Washington Post logoThe U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed new rules Tuesday to limit access to food stamps for households with savings and other assets, a measure that officials said would cut benefits to about 3 million people.

In a telephone call with reporters, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue and Acting Deputy Under Secretary Brandon Lipps said the proposed new rules for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) were aimed at ending automatic eligibility for those who were already receiving federal and state assistance.

“This proposal will save money and preserve the integrity of the program,” Perdue said. “SNAP should be a temporary safety net.”

View the complete July 23 article by Laura Reiley on The Washington Post website here.

Many USDA workers to quit as research agencies move to Kansas City: ‘The brain drain we all feared’

Washington Post logoTwo research agencies at the Agriculture Department will uproot from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City in the fall. But many staffers have decided to give up their jobs rather than move, prompting concerns of hollowed-out offices unable to adequately fund or inform agricultural science.

About two-thirds of the USDA employees declined their reassignments, according to a tally the department released Tuesday. Ninety-nine of 171 employees at the Economic Research Service, an influential federal statistical agency, will not move. At the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, which manages a $1.7 billion portfolio in scientific funding, 151 of 224 employees declined to relocate.

Jack Payne, University of Florida’s vice president for agriculture and natural resources, warned that the hemorrhage of employees will devastate ERS and NIFA. “This is the brain drain we all feared, possibly a destruction of the agencies,” Payne said.

View the complete July 18 article by Ben Guarino on The Washington Post website here.