Staff Reports
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins walked into a Senate hearing this week and did something Washington rarely does: she spoke plainly. Rollins told lawmakers the United States has drifted from being a global farm powerhouse to a nation that now buys more food than it sells. That is a short sentence with long consequences for food security, farm jobs, and national independence.
Rollins sounds the alarm — and she’s right to do it
In her congressional testimony, Secretary Rollins framed food as a national-security issue. She said, “defending America’s ability to feed and fuel and clothe herself is defending America, full stop,” and warned that 2023 marked a major shift: imports outpaced exports. That was not campaign rhetoric—she tied the problem to real trends, like meatpacking concentration, seed and fertilizer control, and rising foreign ownership of U.S. farmland. If you think food is just another consumer good, try telling that to a rancher who can’t get his cattle processed or to a small town that’s lost its processing plant.
Data backs the warning: concentrated power and foreign stakes
You don’t have to take the Secretary’s word for it. USDA data show agricultural trade moved into deficit territory in the fiscal year that Rollins cited. Analysis of farmland records shows reported foreign-held acres have jumped sharply since 2010. Meatpacking is famously concentrated: roughly four packers control the vast majority of processing capacity. And one of the nation’s biggest pork processors is owned by a China-linked parent. Those are the facts. The result is fewer buyers for farmers, fewer choices for consumers, and more leverage for giant firms and foreign owners.
Why consolidation and foreign ownership are dangerous
When four companies can shut down a big chunk of meat processing, one storm or supply glitch becomes a grocery crisis. When seed, fertilizer, and processing sit in the hands of a few giants, the farm economy loses resilience and small producers lose bargaining power. And when foreign firms own major assets here, Americans should ask whether our food supply could be used as leverage in a crisis. Call it realism, not fear-mongering: reliance on imports and concentrated supply chains is a vulnerability, plain and simple.
What comes next — policy and political action
Rollins didn’t just sound the alarm; she offered a plan. USDA is rolling out a National Farm Security Action Plan, pushing a voluntary Product of the USA label, and promising targeted support for American producers. Congress has started to respond too, with proposals to curb meatpacking dominance and watchdog agencies asking questions about fertilizer and seed markets. That’s good. But words need to turn into law and action. If Washington wants fewer empty grocery shelves and stronger rural towns, it will stop subsidizing concentration and start championing American farms.
Secretary Rollins put the issue on the table. Conservatives should cheer the blunt talk and then push the hard fixes: rebuild domestic capacity, break up choke points where needed, and keep farmland in American hands. Food security isn’t a slogan — it’s basic common sense. If we fail to act, we won’t be able to blame the weather or the market alone. We’ll have only ourselves to blame.
