Source: Susan Kelly,  MEATINGPLACE, 10/17/17



USDA announced it is withdrawing an interim final rule — widely opposed by the processing industry — addressing sales of live animals between farmers and meat and poultry processors.

Known as the Farmer Fair Practice Rules, the set of regulations was initially promoted as protecting farmers and ranchers from anticompetitive business practices and would have updated the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration’s (GIPSA) Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921. The rules addressed such issues as how competitive injury is determined and how preferences are determined in the poultry grower ranking system.

The rule was published in the Federal Register in December and scheduled to go into effect on Oct. 19 after an extension of the comment period.

Industry groups applaud
The interim final rule would have broadened the scope of the Packers and Stockyards Act related to using “unfair, unjustly discriminatory or deceptive practices” and to giving “undue or unreasonable preferences or advantages,” the National Pork Producers Council said in a statement. Specifically, the rule would have made such actions violations of federal law even if they didn’t harm competition or cause competitive injury.

“We’re very pleased that the secretary will withdraw these bad regulations, which would have had a devastating impact on America’s pork producers,” said NPPC President Ken Maschhoff, a pork producer from Carlyle, Ill. “The regulations would have restricted the buying and selling of livestock, led to consolidation of the livestock industry — putting farmers out of business — and increased consumer prices for meat.”

North American Meat Institute President and CEO Barry Carpenter, in a statement, said the rule would have harmed farmers and ranchers, as well as consumers, retailers and meat packers and processors by limiting marketing agreements that allow the industry to meet consumer demand for various animal handling and production requirements, such as organic, grass-fed, and raised without antibiotics, limiting the availability of these products for consumers.

The National Chicken Council (NCC) called the rule “ill-advised” and “likely to inflict billions of dollars of economic harm to American agriculture,” exceeding GIPSA’s statutory authority.

“Eight different circuit courts of appeal have addressed a key issue underpinning the rules — the need to prove competitive injury to demonstrate a violation — and they have uniformly and resoundingly rejected the position advanced by GIPSA in these three rules,” NCC said in a statement.

USDA said the document rescinding the final rule is scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Oct. 18. It can be viewed here.

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