The U.S. Department of Agriculture will implement two new efforts to support fair and competitive meat and poultry markets.
The action was announced by President Joe Biden on Monday at a meeting of the White House Competition Council, of which USDA is a part, a news release said.
These efforts will include protecting farmer and ranchers from abuse by “publishing the proposed Inclusive Competition and Market Integrity rules under the Packers and Stockyards Act” and “a new $15 million Agricultural Competition Challenge to ramp up collaboration with the state attorneys general (AG) on enforcement of the competition laws, such as the measures against price-fixing,” the release said.
“Highly concentrated local markets in livestock and poultry have increasingly left farmers, ranchers, growers and producers vulnerable to a range of practices that unjustly exclude them from economic opportunities and undermine a transparent, competitive, and open market, which harms producers’ ability to deliver the quality, affordable food working families depend upon,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who is a member of the White House Competition Council, said in the release.
“USDA is focused on building new, fairer and more resilient markets, protecting producers, and reducing food costs," he added. "We are proving again that we will use all tools at our disposal to do so.”
The proposed rule on Inclusive Competition and Market Integrity efforts calls for “modernized regulations under the Packers and Stockyards (P&S) Act’s provisions prohibiting undue prejudice, unjust discrimination and deception to provide for clearer, more effective standards to govern the modern marketplace,” the news release said.
“The purpose of the rule is to promote inclusive competition and market integrity in the livestock, meat, and poultry markets,” the release said.
The Agricultural Competition Challenge will ask state attorneys general “to partner with USDA on competition issues in the food and agriculture space, using up to $15 million in funds from the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA),” the release said.
