77 family farms vanish every day in the U.S. But what’s really killing them? A CHD.TV interview with rancher and Beef Initiative policy fellow Breeauna Sagdal reveals the trap: USDA regulations, monopolized meatpacking, foreign land grabs, and debt-servicing farmers who aren’t allowed to feed their neighbors.
In a wide-ranging Children’s Health Defense interview with Dr. Meryl Nass – a physician, biowarfare expert, and outspoken critic of pandemic-era overreach – Breeauna Sagdal of The Beef Initiative lays out how America’s farmers are being regulated, indebted, and squeezed off the land. From USDA slaughter restrictions to foreign land sales and monopolized meatpacking, the system isn’t broken—it’s rigged. And Sagdal says the only way out starts with shaking your rancher’s hand.
Negative Income and the Two-Job Farmer
“We are all working a second job,” Sagdal tells Dr. Meryl Nass in a June 17 CHD.TV broadcast. “In many cases, it feels like we’ve become serfs on our own land.”
According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service, median farm income from farming alone was negative $1,781 in 2023. Over 50% of livestock producers lost money. The only way they survived was off-farm jobs, personal debt, or liquidation of breeding stock.
Farmers Banned From Feeding Their Neighbors
“I can’t even legally sell what I grow on my farm to any of my friends, family, or neighbors,” Sagdal says. Why? Because of USDA slaughter rules. With few exceptions, unless meat is processed at a USDA-inspected facility, and labeled with a USDA stamp, it’s illegal to sell. An issue compounded by the fact that just four companies have monopolized the few meatpacking plants that still exist.
Sagdal: “We’ve got to stop criminalizing food production. I think it might be easier to sell heroin than raw milk.“
USDA inspectors have helped shut down local and regional slaughterhouses for decades, while court documents and video footage show an inspector giving a free pass to a Tyson-owned pork facility—fueling criticisms of USDA selectionism.
Between 1990 and 2016, federally inspected plants fell 36% and non-federally inspected facilities dropped 42%. As a consequence, many small farms lack access to USDA‑inspected custom or state processing facilities—locking them out of grocery chains and school lunch contracts, even when their meat is superior.
USDA Owns the Debt, Foreign Buyers Get the Land
The Farm Credit System now holds 46% of U.S. agricultural debt, and tens-of-millions of acres in collateral. At a time when conventional lenders consider agricultural loans “bad hygiene,” Sagdal points out that liquidity deficits have added to the plight farmers face today.
Without access to capital, farmers stagnate or default. That – Nass explains – is when the land goes to the government’s lending arms—then quietly into foreign hands.
Sagdal: “Farm Credit owns 46% of ag debt… and that land is being sold to foreign entities. The number one foreign buyer isn’t even China. It’s Canada.”
According to the USDA’s 2023 AFIDA report, Canada remains the top foreign landholder in the U.S., with over 12.8 million acres. China ranks 5th, but public focus on CCP ties often obscures the broader pattern: distressed land transfers out of American hands.
Nass gives an example of reasons why a farmer might take a loss, such as the recent H5N1 culling event; “the federal government pays $16 per bird, but the farmer doesn’t get that. Cal-Maine gets the $16, and the farmer may get nothing, or $2… then, because he had chickens with bird flu on his property, he’s not allowed to grow any more chickens for six months.”
Nass explains that these losses equate to property liens, and foreclosures. “This is how farmers become serfs on their own land.“
The Monopoly Machine: Seizing Control Through the Means of Production
Sagdal points to JBS, the Brazilian meat giant, to illustrate how the means of production have been consolidated in the U.S. In 2020, JBS was fined for price fixing, but deemed too big to fail, by then Secretary Tom Vilsack after members of Congress asked why the company was still allowed to offer tournament contracts.
The tournament system, detailed in a 2020 Government Affairs Office (GAO) report, is a corporate herd-share agreement in which “subsidiaries” of the USDA contract out the raising of livestock to farmers.
Supplying the proprietary genetics, feed, and veterinarian medicine, Sagdal argues that just four main corporations – who own the USDA certified production plants – have been allowed to corner the only means of market access.
As Sagdal explains, she can grow meat for her own family to consume, but she’s unable to legally sell it unless it goes through a USDA certified production facility.
JBS – one of the “Big 4” corporations that have seized the means of meat production – now controls over 120 U.S. meat labels.
“So you think you’re buying a product from one company, and then a product from another company,” Nass says. “But no, allot of it is JBS. They’re the number one seller of beef and chickens in the world.”
With the “Big 4” owning 85% of the livestock market, and 95% of the United State’s domestic meat supply processed through just five main facilities, farmers have few options outside of tournament contracts—consumers have even less options.
The USDA’s Double Standard: Burden Americans, Reward Imports
From APHIS rules to EPA wastewater standards, U.S. producers face a thicket of regulations that imported beef, lamb, and pork do not. Meanwhile, WTO agreements block honest country-of-origin labeling.
Sagdal: “I would love to raise clean, grass-fed beef for my kids’ school. But I can’t. The system won’t allow it.”
As of 2024, the U.S. has become a net-importer of meat, importing roughly 26% of its ground beef supply alone. WTO rules still block mandatory country-of-origin labeling, allowing multinational packers to repackage foreign meat as “Product of USA.”
77 Family Farms Lost Per Day
“We have lost 77 family farms per day… This is a national security crisis.”
From 2017 to 2024, Sagdal notes the U.S. lost over 160,000 farms. According to USDA census data, average herd sizes are shrinking, and cattle inventory is now near 1951 levels — when America had half the population that it does today.
“We are solely dependent on imports for our food security,” Sagdal warns. “Two of the Big 4 processors are foreign-owned.”
Shake Your Rancher’s Hand
The solution isn’t lobbying your senator. It’s feeding your own community. Sagdal wants to supply beef to her kids’ school—but the system blocks her.
Until that changes, every transaction with a local rancher is an act of resistance.
“I want to keep producing quality food for my family and neighbors. But our farm, like most family farms today, stands at a critical tipping point. We’re not asking for handouts. We simply want the opportunity to access the marketplace, and give the American people a choice.”
— Breeauna Sagdal
Read that again. Because when the land is gone, the labels will lie, and the beef will come from Brazil.
Watch the full interview here.
Support your local rancher. Ask about slaughter. Ask about feed. Ask about country of origin. And for God’s sake, shake your rancher’s hand.
