Billings, Mont. –
“Rural America now has proof that
the packer lobby – the handful of
multinational meatpacking
corporations and their allied trade
associations** which has caused the
hollowing-out of rural communities
for decades – has
infiltrated Congress so deeply
that even the President’s own
political party is refusing to carry
out the President’s campaign promise
to restore competition to
agricultural markets for U.S. family
farmers and ranchers and rural
main-street businesses,” said R-CALF
USA Marketing Committee Chair Dennis
Thornsberry in response to the
Oct. 1, 2010, letter
to Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack, circulated by
U.S. House Agriculture Committee
Chairman Collin Peterson, D-Minn.,
and Ranking Member Frank Lucas, R-Okla.,
and signed by an additional 113 U.S.
Representatives, including 68
Republicans and 47 Democrats.
**The
multinational packers and their
allied trade associations include:
the American Meat Institute (AMI),
the National Cattlemen’s Beef
Association (NCBA), the National
Meat Association (NMA) and the
National Pork Producers Council (NPPC).
R-CALF
USA CEO Bill Bullard
said that while R-CALF USA members
have been anxiously awaiting the
implementation of sweeping changes
President Obama has promised and
that are necessary to reverse the
ongoing economic erosion of Rural
America, the congressional letter
uses the pretense of wanting a new
economic analysis to deliver a
direct attack on the proposed U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Grain Inspection, Packers and
Stockyards Administration (GIPSA)
rule designed to restore competition
to U.S. livestock markets.
“The
Congressmen actually attacked the
GIPSA rule on the basis that USDA
‘fails to demonstrate the need for
the rule,’ and that the rule is
‘sweeping in its scope,’” he said.
“We’re
dumbstruck by this letter, said
Thornsberry.
The
U.S. cattle industry has lost over
500,000 independent cattle
operations, and the U.S. hog
industry has lost over 600,000
independent hog operations in just
the past few decades, and today our
U.S. cattle herd size has shrunk to
the smallest size since the 1950s,
he said.
“We’re
destroying our rural infrastructure
and growing ever-more dependent on
imported food to feed our nation,
and this unacceptable situation is
principally the result of past
Administrations’ failures to enforce
U.S. antitrust laws in the
meatpacking industry and to properly
implement the nearly 90-year-old
Packers and Stockyards Act that
Congress passed in 1921 to protect
independent farmers and ranchers
against the monopoly power held by
the concentrated meatpackers,”
Thornsberry continued.
Through letters and visits to
Congress and USDA over several
years, literally hundreds of farm,
ranch, consumer, rural and
faith-based organizations have
articulated the urgent need for
sweeping changes to restore
competition lost to Rural America.
“The
need for updating the GIPSA rule is
all around us: an ongoing exodus of
farmers and ranchers from Rural
America, a shrinking food production
system that’s leaving rural
communities in shambles, and the
fact our country’s dependency on
imported food continues to grow,”
Thornsberry emphasized. “How can
the congressional signatories on
this joint letter not see the dire
need for this rule and the urgent
need to implement sweeping changes
to reverse the ongoing outsourcing
of economic opportunities and food
production in Rural America?
“Now,
just when USDA finally takes steps
to address this disastrous situation
by proposing a rule to begin the
proper enforcement of the Packers
and Stockyards Act to prevent the
packers from manipulating the cattle
market, those very same packers and
their allied trade associations find
a way to round up and manipulate
these Representatives to directly
interfere with the public rulemaking
process,” he added.
“This
is a travesty,” said Bullard. “USDA
initiated a public rulemaking
process to provide every citizen the
opportunity to comment on the
proposed GIPSA rule, giving
independent farmers, ranchers and
other rural citizens the same
opportunity that the packer lobby
has to formally express their
concerns and recommendations before
the agency finalizes the rule. But
now, we have Congress deliberately
interfering in the public rulemaking
process by carrying out the packer
lobby’s strategy to delay and
obfuscate the rule before the public
even has time to submit their
comments.
“Given
Congress’ action of supporting the
packer lobby’s interests, the people
must now rise up to counter this
attack by writing their own letters
to the Agriculture Secretary to urge
him to continue, without delay, the
process of finalizing the GIPSA
rule, which will finally begin to
restore competition lost in our U.S.
livestock markets,” Bullard
concluded. “There are more of us
than there are of them, and we need
to immediately capitalize on this
fundamental strength.”
# # #
R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen
Action Legal Fund, United
Stockgrowers of America) is a
national, nonprofit organization
dedicated to ensuring the continued
profitability and viability of the
U.S. cattle industry. R-CALF USA
represents thousands of U.S. cattle
producers on trade and marketing
issues. Members are located across
47 states and are primarily cow/calf
operators, cattle backgrounders,
and/or feedlot owners. R-CALF USA
directors and committee chairs are
extremely active unpaid volunteers.
R-CALF USA has dozens of affiliate
organizations and various
main-street businesses are associate
members. For more information, visit
www.r-calfusa.com
or, call 406-252-2516.
