(Sioux City)– A Sioux City man seeking Iowa’s 4th District Congressional seat says what’s going on right now with COVID-19 and the meatpacking industry and the disruption in the food chain that will likely follow is deeply concerning to him. J.D. Scholten is calling for a complete overhaul of the system. He’s recommending a transition to regional food hubs…
“This is something that I’ve been saying for the last couple of years is create a infrastructure. For pennies on the dollar that we already invest in agriculture, for pennies on the dollar let’s create a farm to community college, farm to school, farm to prison, farm to nursing home infrastructure and allow markets to build off of that and create these regional food hubs because. We’re a secure nation because we’re a food secure nation and we’ve got to continue on that. What we saw with the ventilators and the masks and that going overseas to China, that’s, we got to be able to be self sustaining. And when it comes to our food system we absolutely have to be that, too, and what we’ve seen, we see China come here and currently right now China owns over 400 farms in the U.S.; they own 33 packing plants.”
Scholten is also calling on Congress to pass additional stimulus packages for small businesses and individuals, saying much more is needed.
