Tom Vilsack Secretary of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) | Official Website
WASHINGTON, June 25, 2024 – The pandemic revealed how bottlenecks in the food and agriculture supply chain threatened consumers with higher costs and reduced access to key products, while producers faced collapsed markets and unfair prices. Meanwhile, marketplace abuses in concentrated markets have been longstanding concerns in key sectors such as meat and poultry.
Under President Biden’s Executive Order on Promoting Competition in America’s Economy, the USDA has led an initiative to improve the competitive landscape in food and agricultural markets. With investments, new rules and enforcement, and a realignment of policies, the Biden-Harris USDA has aimed to create fairer markets that serve both consumers and farmers.
Key highlights of USDA’s efforts include:
Delivering a multibillion-dollar investment plan to lower costs for consumers and boost choice for producers by incentivizing competition in food processing and fertilizer. The USDA is investing $1 billion to expand independent meat and poultry processing capacity across the country.
To enable sustained success, USDA has supported various needs:
Local processing options: $9.5 million to 42 projects through the Local Meat Capacity Grant program aims to build resilience in the meat and poultry supply chain by modernizing processing capacity. These awards cover 27 states and Puerto Rico.
Enhanced financing options: The USDA RD Rural Business and Cooperative Service (RBCS) has awarded $275 million in grants to 29 eligible lenders under the Meat and Poultry Intermediary Lending Program (MPILP). These awards establish revolving loan funds to increase capital access for processors wanting to start or expand meat and poultry processing capacity.
Workforce Training: USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) is awarding universities grants up to $15 million to support agricultural workforce training for historically underserved communities. These programs focus on developing training materials relevant to small or mid-sized farms.
Food safety compliance: AMS awarded $53 million through 237 grants in 45 states via the Meat and Poultry Inspection Readiness Grant Program (MPIRG) to help operational facilities obtain a Federal Grant of Inspection or operate as State-inspected facilities under a Cooperative Interstate Shipment (CIS) program.
USDA has also dedicated $900 million for the Fertilizer Production Expansion Program. This includes 57 projects in 29 states totaling $251 million. Examples include businesses using technology to manufacture fertilizer from raw manure, fish waste, or employing slow-release technology for nutrient efficiency.
Reinvigorating century-old market laws with new rules under the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 (P&S Act), USDA aims to counter unfair practices. This includes promoting transparency in poultry contracting, addressing unfairness in broiler grower payments, prohibiting discrimination, retaliation, deception, among others.
The “Transparency in Poultry Contracting and Tournaments” final rule provides growers better insight into financial decisions related to poultry growing arrangements or capital investments.
The “Inclusive Competition and Market Integrity” final rule prohibits discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, religious affiliation; bans retaliatory practices; protects against deceptive contracting; among other measures.
Proposed rules like “Poultry Grower Payment Systems” aim at ensuring fair comparison systems without disadvantaging specific growers.
The proposed “Fair and Competitive Livestock Markets” rule clarifies prohibitions on unfair practices under P&S Act concerning competitive injury.
AMS will release a report on retail market access later this summer while working on improving transparency in cattle markets. AMS enhanced its enforcement partnership with the U.S Department of Justice by establishing a joint tips portal at farmerfairness.gov.
Supporting transparency: In February 2024, USDA finalized a rule allowing "Product of USA" claims only if products are derived from animals born, raised, slaughtered, processed within the U.S., aligning consumer understanding with labeling standards.
USDA launched its pilot Cattle Contracts Library providing industry disclosure regarding cattle contracts terms. A new data visualization tool called Livestock Mandatory Reporting Live Cattle Data Dashboard will be available this summer offering user-friendly access to live cattle market information.
Creating fairer markets for seeds: In March 2023, USDA released recommendations titled "More Choices for Farmers," taking immediate action on three recommendations from this report.
Enhancing value-added market access: As part of transforming the nation’s food system initiatives like Organic Transition Initiative supports local food systems creating market opportunities adding value for producers/consumers supporting economic activity locally helping communities left behind by current agricultural models supporting good-paying jobs throughout supply chains.
Increasing transportation network resilience: Secretary Vilsack co-chairing Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force urged Surface Transportation Board(STB) requesting urgent actions improving rail services moving forward open proceedings emergency service orders reciprocal switching urging clarity railroads’ common carrier obligation collecting additional service data.
