American farmers are suffering, facing a pileup of misfortunes: President Trump’s tariffs, record-setting floods during spring planting, and persistently low prices for their products. The Trump administration has promised nearly $20 billion in financial aid, but so far just a third of that has reached farmers, more than half of whom lost money last year.
A woman named Beth Ford has emerged as the farmer’s advocate. Last year, she became the CEO of Land O’Lakes. You’re thinking that’s the butter company, and it is. But it’s also a multi-billion dollar agricultural conglomerate that in one way or another affects half of all the farmland in America. Beth Ford spends a lot of her time lobbying in Washington, and this spring she wrote an op-ed piece titled “Farmers Are In Crisis, and America Isn’t Paying Attention.”
Video after the jump
Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford and the changing landscape of America’s farms
Source: 60 Minutes
Lesley Stahl speaks with Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford about the challenges facing farmers today, the opportunities technology offers and what it’s like to be the only openly gay, female CEO of a Fortune 500 company
