Source: NATIONAL SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE COALITION, 10/11/16


Six years ago, powerful corporate livestock and poultry industry groups released a report claiming that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) 2010 Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) rule would harm family poultry and livestock producers. In fact, what they were really worried about was interrupting the anti-competitive, vertically integrated livestock and poultry systems that they had worked so carefully to construct.

On September 19, these same groups released another, strikingly similar, report (“Proposed GIPSA Rules Relation to the Chicken Industry: Economic Impact”) in an attempt to continue stalling USDA’s efforts to protect the rights of livestock and poultry farmers. The groups also issued a letter, signed by groups representing corporate livestock and poultry companies (The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Chicken Council, the National Pork Producers Council, the National Turkey Federation, and the North American Meat Institute), requesting that USDA delay finalizing the GIPSA rules in order to take additional comments – despite the fact that more than 60,000 comments have already been submitted, and despite the fact that USDA is planning for a new public comment period.

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