Well, it’s 9:00 pm on December 13, and this newsletter article is 48 hours overdue, at least. And we are still in the office watching the waning hours of the Senate farm bill debate. Now is as good a time as any (or as late as our newsletter editor can reasonably allow) to offer an update on how livestock market reforms are faring.
As previously reported,
a prohibition of packer ownership of livestock for more than 14 days prior to slaughter was included in the Senate Ag Committee’s farm bill without official dissent. Although there were noises, mostly from Senator Pat Roberts (R-KS), about an amendment on the floor of the Senate to strip the provision from the bill, no such amendment was even offered.
The growing popularity of the ban on packer ownership of livestock that forced opponents to shy away from resisting the amendment in committee also kept them from fighting it on the Senate floor.
Their belief that they will ultimately get whatever they want in the House-Senate Conference Committee, however, is a warning that livestock competition reforms still face stern challenges.
We had a tougher time with another important provision in the Senate Agriculture Committee’s Livestock Title. That provision would require USDA to write rules preventing unjustifiable price discrimination against family farm and ranch livestock producers. The committee bill made clear that preferential pricing that is not justified by real differences in quality or actual, quantifiable differences in procurement costs will not be allowed.
Senator Roberts of Kansas offered an amendment that would have removed crucial language and allowed the purely volume-based sweetheart deals that packers give to large industrial livestock operations. After weeks of negotiations, Senator Roberts withdrew his amendment, although the final language is not all that we had hoped.
The farm bill has created opportunities to breathe new life back into livestock markets. This is important, not just for family farmers and ranchers, but also to curtail the economic and environmental nightmare that has resulted from the consolidation, industrialization, and vertical integration of livestock production across rural America. Retaining these and other livestock competition reforms in the House-Senate Conference Committee and at USDA will be a long, tough battle.
Contact: John Crabtree,
johnc@cfra.org or 402.687.2103 x 1010 with questions and comments about Corporate Farming Notes.
Dakota Rural Action has been a close ally of the Center for Rural Affairs since the South Dakota grassroots organization was established. In particular, Dakota Rural Action is a key ally in South Dakota on livestock market reforms, beginning farmer and rancher initiatives and on anti-corporate farming laws. Visit them online today. 
