The United States Department of Agriculture reinvigorated the critically important Packers and Stockyards Act, today. The Organization for Competitive Markets, long an advocate for transparency and fairness in the marketplace for farm products, applauds Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack's leadership, and congratulates the Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration
(GIPSA) for these significant new Rules. The Rules becomes effective June 22, 2010.
"We are most grateful for the Department of Agriculture's decision to address lack of fairness and commonsense treatment for livestock and poultry producers. It is past time to insure a level playing field by providing protections against unfair practices. The Department has now done so," declared Fred Stokes, OCM's Executive Director.
OCM President Randy Stevenson, cattle rancher and feeder, added, "New market conditions have evolved since the former rules were written that needed to be addressed. The USDA has firmly and fairly done so, and we are gratified. Producers have needed help in all meat sectors. Now they have it!"
The new USDA rules, developed under the authority of the 2008 Farm Bill, fulfill the USDA's mandate to engage in rule making to improve fairness in the marketing of livestock and poultry. OCM was one of more than 200 organizations that urged Congress to include a livestock title in the Farm Bill to require more open and competitive markets for producers.
"We are delighted that the ongoing joint US Department of Justice and US Department of Agriculture workshops have contributed to an understanding and climate for development of these Rules," OCM President Stevenson said. "We believe the Rules are necessary. Balance at the marketplace is vital for both producers and consumers."
The Organization for Competitive Markets Senior Economic Fellow, C. Robert Taylor, an Ag Economist at Auburn University, noted that the Rules "may help stabilize the dramatic decline in the number of hog, cattle, and poultry producers in the United States." Dr. Taylor
said, "Size does not necessarily mean efficiency. Where market power is held by processors, it can be wielded against both producers and consumers. The rules are a strong expression by the USDA that things must change, and that change will be helpful to producers and consumers alike."
OCM is especially grateful that the new rules vigorously reiterate USDA's position that a producer need not prove harm to competition, an antitrust concept, to establish that the producer has been victimized by undue or unreasonable preferences, or other producer-specific unlawful activity. "We hope and expect that the nation's courts will now give due deference to USDA's regulatory position in light of these rules, as mandated by existing law." Dr. Taylor concluded.
OCM is a tax-exempt non-profit organization, advocating for the interests of farmers, ranchers and rural America.
competitivemarkets.com
Source: newsroom - meattradenewsdaily.co.uk
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