Lewis Bollard

They sell the image of this person out in the fields, tending to their chickens and their pigs.

They don't realize these are factory farmers.

And they're extremely well organized.

I mean, they have a very formidable lobbying presence in Washington, D.C.

and across state capitals.

And they have effectively used that to block any kind of regulation.

You know, there's this children's kids book rule of politics, which is you should never mess with a character in a children's book.

And, you know, that's the police, that's the doctors, that's the farmers.

And I don't think there are any tech bros in the kids books yet.

Yeah, this is a great point.

I think most people don't realize that the way these factory farms are structured is you have these giant corporations like Tyson Foods or Smithfield.

They mostly don't own their own farms.

Instead, they have these contract farmers who are essentially indentured laborers.

I mean, they have a huge loan hanging over their head and they're farming.

So why would those people support this?

The answer is they often don't.

And I think the agribusiness lobbying associations have done a very good job of pretending they do.

So they present themselves as representing the farmers.

But if you look at their boards, if you look at the people who are actually leading these organizations, it's made up of people from the giant agribusinesses and the very largest industrial farmers.

They do not have small contract farmers on the boards of these organizations.