NEW: Vilsack's choice for comms chief at USDA has a history of working for big agriculture.

Small farmers, getting squeezed out of business, aren’t happy about it:

"...a bomb goes off in my head..."

My story: https://tyt.com/stories/4vZLCHuQrYE4uKagy0oyMA/1NMv0zAa3nx26wmOPjWfDA

Vilsack himself led the U.S. Dairy Export Council.

His comms chief, Matt Herrick, was svp at Intl. Dairy Foods Assn....

...which represents some of the biggest food companies in the country -- who make more $ the less they have to pay farmers for their dairy.

Other "Dairy Foods" companies that belong to the IDFA include JP Morgan and Bank of America. https://www2.idfa.org/forms/MemberDirectory/viewMemberDirectoryAll

And IDFA routinely lobbies the USDA directly.

In fact, IDFA's lobbyists worked directly with Herrick on several IDFA boards, IDFA records show.

What does IDFA lobby the USDA about?

Lobbying records show IDFA members want to use dairy byproducts, and cheap imported dairy...

...without having to tell consumers they're not consuming real dairy, produced in the U.S.

Neither USDA nor IDFA would say how much Herrick was paid by IDFA.

IDFA won't release its most recent 990.

But previous 990s show what other Sr. VPs made at IDFA... all above a quarter million annually.

Here's what Family Farm Defenders had to say about Herrick.

Most of those I spoke with weren't familiar with Herrick.

But they knew the IDFA.

Here's the National Family Farm Coalition.

And here's the Progressive Agriculture Organization, out of Pennsylvania (like Wisconsin, a key state for Democrats in 2022 and 2024), on the IDFA and Vilsack.

I also spoke with a former USDA official under Obama.

Here's what they told me, anonymously:

Small family farms are dying.

It's not inevitable, it's because both parties abandoned policies that kept the playing field level and ensured Big Ag couldn't pass its products off as something they weren't.

Biden could change that, but so far hasn't shown any interest.