NPPC Files GIPSA Rule Comments; Coalition Voices Support
Groups for and against proposed rule continue to push their opinions.
Compiled by staff
Published: Nov 22, 2010
The National Pork Producers Council says a USDA agency lacked authority or exceeded it on certain provisions of a proposed rule on buying and selling hogs, failed to support the need for the regulation with evidence of problems in the pork industry and didn't consider its own studies showing that restricting contracts could harm the industry. Those comments have been submitted to USDA concerning the proposed GIPSA rule. The public comment period ends Monday.
In its comments, NPPC, called the regulation a "bureaucratic overreach," and said GIPSA lacked authority to; for example, declare that no showing of injury to competition is necessary to establish a violation of the PSA. It pointed out that federal courts have uniformly rejected that view and that Congress rejected a similar provision during debate on the 2008 Farm Bill. NPPC also pointed out that the rule was offered with no meaningful analysis of its impact on the pork industry.
NPPC asked that GIPSA withdraw the portions of the proposed rule that will have an immediate and detrimental impact on the pork industry. It also requested a thorough analysis of the affect on the pork producers of any new regulation.
Meanwhile a group of livestock, poultry and farm organizations called the Competition Coalition sponsored separate briefing sessions for House and Senate congressional offices to explain why the GIPSA rule is needed to restore transparency and fairness to livestock and poultry markets accessed by the nation's family farmers and ranchers.
R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard says rather than bring professional lobbyists to Washington to persuade Congress to support the ongoing corporatization of our nation's livestock supply chains, the Competition Coalition brought actual livestock producers to D.C. to provide firsthand accounts of how their profitability has been improperly squeezed by monopolistic packers and how the GIPSA rule would restrict meatpackers from exercising their monopolistic power.
Craig Watts, a North Carolina contract poultry grower who has been raising chickens under a production contract since the early '90s, warned that the hog and cattle industries are fast moving toward the integrated poultry model where meatpackers have excessive control over the success and profitability of farmers. He said following the corporate-controlled poultry model would be the worst thing the hog and cattle industries could possibly do.
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Tagged: farm, usda, farm bill, livestock producers
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