I watched 40,000 AFL-CIO members coming up that street. We have the opportunity to speak our own mind. I hope we allow democracy to flourish and not allow special interests, corporate interests, to take over. We must not allow them to dictate to us. Contente said he and other dairy farmers are active in the California Dairy Campaign aimed at giving them stronger leverage in winning fair prices.
Farmers are at the bottom of the ladder when it comes to their share of the agricultural dollar.
Independent and family farmers, he explained, lack bargaining power and are forced to accept the prices dictated by these giant monopolies. In most cases, whether the farmer is large or small, we are not getting the cost of production. At its height, farmers won 100 percent parity pricing under these federal programs which forced the food monopolies to pay farmers prices that covered the cost of production plus a fair profit. Consumer food prices remained stable. By contrast, Freedom to Farm put farmers' prices in free fall, a disaster for the farmers but a boon to the agribusiness middle men.