Packers and Stockyards Act

As we sit down to our holiday tables to consume turkeys, hams and roast beef, we should be mindful of the corporate abuses and anti-competitive behaviors in the livestock and poultry industry.

This unprecedented control has driven livestock and poultry farmers out of business and off their farms at alarming rates. Consumers are facing skyrocketing prices at the grocery store while corporations like JBS, Smithfield, and Tyson Foods line their pockets with record profits.

The Packers and Stockyards Act is a 102-year-old law that was intended to protect farmers and ranchers from concentrated, abusive monopoly power in the livestock industry. Initially the P&S Act was very successful at leveling the economic playing field, but in the 1980s the courts began eroding its power, allowing corporations to gain unprecedented control over meat and poultry production.

In June of 2021, President Biden issued the historic Executive Order Promoting Competition in the American Economy, in which he charged the U.S. Department of Agriculture to strengthen this landmark law. So far the USDA has published two very promising rules which will make important strides in strengthening the P&S Act, however, there is still a lot of work to be done and they are running out of time.

Currently, producers who have been harmed by unfair practices must prove harm to the entire industry — a prohibitively high burden of proof that protects monopolies from legal action. In addition to defining unfair practices and undue preferences, the executive order directed the USDA to clarify the law’s original intent by removing this misinterpreted requirement to demonstrate sector-wide harm in order to bring action for market abuses.

With the election only one year away, the USDA must issue this rule as soon as possible or risk losing this window of opportunity. The longer they delay, the more farmers we will lose. Since 1970, the farmer’s share of the consumer dollar has plummeted from around 70% to 37%. Between 2002 and 2017, the U.S. has lost 40% of its dairy farms, 20% of hog farms, and 68% of feedlots. Today, the four largest processors in each sector control 70% of the market for hogs, 60% for chicken, 62% for sheep and lambs, and 85% for cattle.

Urge your elected officials to put pressure on the USDA for a swift release of the missing Packers and Stockyards Act rules.

Matt L. Barron

Chesterfield

Student safety

Having lived in this liberal state for over 40 years, you’d think I’d be inured to reading imbecilic statements being uttered by one spokesperson or another. However, the quote that came out of the MIAA in response to the severe and disfiguring injury suffered by a girl playing field hockey when a boy’s shot hit her in the face, that “student safety has not been a successful defense to excluding students of one gender from participating on teams of the opposite gender,” may be the all-time lulu.

Peter Bochner

Wayland