U.S. Senate candidate Zach Wahls, a Democrat from Coralville, says it’s time to break up agibusiness monopolices and he’s calling for creation of a Strategic Fertilizer Reserve, like the country’s Strategic Oil Reserve, to protect farmers from price spikes.
Those are two of the proposals focused on rural economics that Wahls touted during a campaign stop in Orance City. “For a long time, Democrats have not — Democratic leaders I should say — have not done a good enough job showing up to communities like this one,” Wahls said.
Wahls pointed to reports indicating four companies control 85% of the U.S. beef market and two companies control over three-quarters and the seed corn market. He supports a federal “Right to Repair” law for farmers who want to fix their combines and tractors themselves. And Wahls said after over 200 Iowa pharmacies have closed in the past 12 years, it’s time for the federal government must pass limits on pharmacy benefit managers.
“Folks, not just working class Iowans, but middle class Iowans, retired Iowans feeling the squeeze of this economy that is working really great for billionaires like Elon Musk and big corporations,” Wahls said, ‘but increasingly is leaving a lot of small towna, rural communities and hardworking Iowa families behind.”
Wahls faces Josh Turek in the June 2 Primary Election. Both Wahls and Turek are current members of the Iowa legislature seeking the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Joni Ernst, who is not running for reelection.
(Reporting by Carson Schubert, KSOU, Sioux Center, and Radio Iowa’s O. Kay Henderson)