(USDA photo by Lance Cheung).
The new leader of the U.S. Senate’s agriculture committee, Arkansas’ John Boozman, has several ties to meatpacking behemoths, including Tyson Foods, and has recently resisted efforts by his fellow Republicans to reign in their economic power.
New Democratic leadership on the committee also has strong agriculture ties, as Sen. Amy Klobuchar has received thousands from employees at the grain processor Cargill.
Republicans recently won control of the U.S. Senate, along with the presidency and the U.S. House of Representatives. This puts the GOP back in charge of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, which has sway over important food legislation, such as the Farm Bill.
New chairman Boozman became the committee’s ranking minority member in 2021, with Democrats controlling the Senate. He was first elected in 2001.
Over his two decades in Congress, employees at Tyson Foods, one of America’s largest meat companies, donated more than $120,000 to his campaigns — the third-most he’s received during his career, according to OpenSecrets.
Neither Boozman or Tyson returned a request for comment.
Just four companies, including Tyson Foods, control 85% of the beef industry, which critics argue limits competition and gives them significant power to set prices. Most beef is bought through contracts, but independent ranchers in rural areas have called for legislation requiring the companies to purchase at least some of their beef on the open market.
In 2021, Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, championed the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act to address ranchers’ concerns. But, when the bill faced opposition from his fellow Republicans, Grassley pointed the finger at Tyson and its peers.
“You got to think behind all this is the political power of the big four packers,” he said, according to Politico.
In response, Boozman said Grassley is a “good friend and we work together very closely, but I think there’s a misunderstanding that somehow we’re trying to block this bill.”
Politico reported that some of the concerns among those trying to pass the legislation were the connections to the meat industry on Boozman’s committee staff. His policy director, Chelsie Keys, used to work for the National Pork Producers Council, which represents major meatpackers. Also, the policy director’s spouse, Gordon Chandler Keys III, is a lobbyist for JBS USA, one of the four companies that control most of the beef industry.
In recent years, Chandler Keys has lobbied the Senate on issues related to “meat inspection” and the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, or GIPSA, according to lobbying disclosure records. GIPSA is tasked with investigating unfair market practices. Originally an independent agency within the USDA, the first Trump administration moved it under the umbrella of another agency, which has reduced its effectiveness, critics have said.
The records do not specify which senators were lobbied, and a committee spokesperson told Politico in 2022 that Keys does not lobby Boozman. Keys did not return requests for comment.
Grassley told KMALand, a radio station in Iowa, that he will continue to push for the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act in this year’s Congress, perhaps as an addition to the Farm Bill.
When asked about the act’s chances, given Boozman’s reported resistance, a spokesperson for Grassley’s office said, “Senator Grassley remains committed to enhancing transparency in the cattle market and ensuring a level playing field for all cattle producers.”
Tyson’s relationship with its contract farmers could be further scrutinized during the next congressional term as the U.S. Department of Agriculture is investigating the company after it closed several of its plants in recent years.
Because of industry consolidation, rural farmers who raised Tyson’s chickens had no other company to sell their chickens to, leaving them saddled with debt.
In Missouri, a Tyson competitor attempted to buy a shuttered plant, but Tyson worked to prevent the purchase, according to an investigation by Watchdog Writers Group and Investigate Midwest. Tyson also subpoenaed communication between former growers and federal investigators. Boozman’s Republican colleague, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, called the company’s actions “anti-American.”
So far, Boozman has not publicly commented on the Tyson plant closures. When he was formally tapped to lead the agriculture committee, he released a statement saying his aim was to “bolster rural communities.”
Sen. Klobuchar has ties to Cargill
On the Democratic side, significant changes are reshaping the Senate agriculture committee’s leadership for the first time in years, driven by a major retirement and election losses.
Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2001, is leaving. She has helped shape several farm bills, most recently as committee chairwoman. Sen. Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat who has been a recent committee mainstay, lost his re-election bid in November.
Klobuchar, of Minnesota, is now the ranking minority member. She’s received consistent support from employees at Cargill, the nation’s largest private company and a major grain processor. Over the years, she’s supported the biofuel industry, a key component of Cargill’s business.
In 2020, as Klobuchar ran for president, the then-CEO of Cargill, Dave MacLennan, served as her campaign bundler, a usually wealthy person who raises substantial cash from others. Overall that year, Cargill employees donated about $37,000 to her — the third highest total from company employees, according to OpenSecrets.
In 2024, Cargill employees donated about $13,600 to Klobuchar, the fifth-most that year, according to OpenSecrets. Cargill employees also donated to Boozman and California’s Adam Schiff, who is also on the Senate agriculture committee.
Cargill is a major producer of biofuels, such as ethanol. A growing body of evidence suggests that ethanol — trumpeted as a climate smart alternative to gasoline — might have minimal climate benefits or, perhaps, might be worse than gas.
Klobuchar has consistently supported the industry. Over the past few years, she has introduced legislation focused on E15, a blend of ethanol that Cargill and others sell. One bill would have removed warnings about ethanol’s potential impact on cars, and another would allow E15 to be sold year-round.
Klobuchar’s office did not respond to requests for comment. The email address that Cargill said was the “best way” for reporters to contact the company bounced back.
New Farm Bill will be area of focus for new committee leaders
The agriculture committee’s most important business will likely be passing a Farm Bill, which funds subsidies for farms and financial assistance for low-income families, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The 2018 Farm Bill expired in 2023, but Congress has approved two-year funding stopgaps since then.
In June, Boozman, as the ranking minority member, published his framework for a new farm bill. He called for increased spending on the so-called “farm safety net” and on trade programs. In November, following her retirement announcement, Stabenow released her framework, which Boozman called “insulting.” While also increasing funding for the farm safety net, it emphasized funding for SNAP and conservation programs related to climate change.
Republicans have 53 votes in the U.S. Senate, but it takes 60 to pass a farm bill in the upper chamber. The legislation will need to attract some Democrats.
“I think at times last year, pretty consistently, it was clear that the ability to work across partisan lines had frayed in the Senate ag committee,” said Mike Lavender, the policy director for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which advocates for sustainable food systems. “The biggest question on my mind is, how will new leadership really lean into a bipartisan approach and working together to get a bill done?”
From a policy standpoint, the shift in leadership likely won’t result in dramatic changes, especially given Boozman’s previous role as ranking minority member, he said. But having different individuals in charge might lead to different points of emphasis.
For instance, Stabenow focused on funding specialty crops, which are a big part of Michigan agriculture. But Klobuchar might focus on competition and antitrust laws, Lavender said. In 2022, Klobuchar published a book on monopoly power.
This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.