Yesterday we looked at how the large meatpacking corporations were reacting to the USDA new proposals, today we will round up the opinions of the livestock ranchers the changes are hoping to protect.
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition applauded the proposed regulations:
"These rules are crucial to restoring a level playing field for independent family farmers," said Martha Noble, senior policy associate with the NSAC. "Undue and unjustified price preferences for industrial scale factory farms have caused substantial harm to markets, small and mid-sized farmers, and rural communities."In their statement, the American Farm Bureau stated:
For too long producers have had to bear the financial hardship of being at the whim of production contractors, resulting in inequality in production practices, increasing losses and decreasing profitability. The GIPSA proposed rule would level the playing field.And finally the Center for Rural Affairs wrote that not only will the new changes "help restore competitive markets and contract fairness to the livestock and poultry markets," the rules will also affect the lack of enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act:
"These sweetheart deals for large volume producers have become commonplace, but no less a violation of the Act," said Crabtree. "Six cents per pound may not sound like much of a discount, but, for a family farmer with 150 sows in a farrow-to-finish operation it amounts to receiving $56,000 less annually for hogs of the same quality, simply because he markets fewer hogs - in the end, that's what this rule needs to put an end to, that's what we set out to accomplish with this rulemaking provision in the farm bill."How many of the proposed changes actually stick remains to be seen, but it certainly looks like a case of David vs Goliath.
