A Mixed Bag of Livestock Fairness Rules
USDA Proposal Offers First Step for Cattle and Hog Producers, Significant Reform for Contract Poultry Growers
Statement of Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter
Washington, D.C. – “Today, the U.S. Department of Agriculture took long-overdue steps to level the playing field between livestock farmers and the consolidated market power of the meatpacking and poultry processing industry. The proposed reforms to the poultry sector are strong; the proposal on cattle and hog marketing arrangements is a modest first step—but nowhere near what is needed to counterbalance the massive market power of the meatpackers.
“The 2008 Farm Bill directed USDA to provide protections to contract poultry growers from some commonplace contract practices used by poultry companies to manipulate prices paid to growers and to prevent them from having access to the courts to settle contractual disputes. The law also directed USDA to finally determine which meatpacker practices are unfair to hog farmers and cattle ranchers.
“In particular, USDA has waited nearly 90 years to define unfair marketing arrangements, known as ‘undue preferences,’ but while the proposal has some of the vital elements, it lacks the needed scope to tackle the problem. USDA’s undue preference proposal will address the unfair price premium and secret preferential contract terms that meatpackers offer to industrial-scale cattle feedlots and hog factory farms. It also delves into the thorny legal issue of whether farmers must prove that unfair meatpacker practices damage the entire marketplace or harm a single farmer (the so-called competitive injury issue). Cattle and hog producers will benefit from these and other reforms. But they have been waiting 90 years for the USDA to use the power it was given by the Packers and Stockyards Act. Although the administration has promised to take more decisive steps in future rules, cattle and hog producers should not have to wait any longer for the USDA to restore some competition to livestock markets.”
Contact: Darcey Rakestraw, Food & Water Watch: (202) 683-2467, drakestraw(at)fwwatch(dot)org