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Farmer’s share of Thanksgiving dinner pennies on the dollar

The National Farmers Union President says farmers are not the ones benefiting from high food costs.

Rob Larew tells Brownfield, “As that food cost goes up and down often it is the farmer on the other end who is also feeling squeezed and pressured.”

He says the farmer’s share of the food dollar has eroded over the past several decades.

“Probably about half of the food dollar so $0.50 on the dollar to nowadays it’s more like 14 cents out of every food dollar spent in America is actually returned to the farmer themselves,” he explains.

This Thanksgiving farmers are expected to earn as little as 6 cents per pound on turkey, retailing for $2.42, up to $1.28 for ham, selling at stores for $15.98 per pound, based on USDA data.

Larew says he believes monopolization across agriculture could be addressed in a new administration to the benefit of farmers.