More action on ag issues coming up in Washington

Staff and wire report

More direct and indirect action is happening in Washington, D.C., on issues related to agricultural production.

President Joe Biden has issued an executive order that includes directing government agencies to increase competition in the markets for agricultural products, and, almost the same time the order was issued, U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it was investing $600 million in meat processing facilities.

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said in a release Friday he was celebrating the USDA investment in meat processing facilities, $500 million in meat and poultry capacity building with the goals of increasing choice and negotiation options for producers as well as $100 million in relief through a fee waiver for inspection and overtime fees for small and medium processors.

The release said the funding is provided through the American Rescue Plan, the most recent coronavirus relief package, which Tester helped negotiate. Tester was the only member of the Montana delegation to vote for the legislation.

“This announcement is welcome news for family ranchers across Montana,” Tester said in the release. “Increasing capacity means more competition in the marketplace, which is essential to ensuring folks in production ag can make a living and that we keep meat prices affordable for families at the grocery store. I’m also glad the administration is taking steps toward more aggressive enforcement against the big packers, but I won’t be satisfied unless these actions have real teeth to them.”

Tester, who has pushed for years to aggressively enforce the Packers and Stockyards Act to cut down on consolidation in the meat processing industry, recently secured Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s support for Tester’s bipartisan Meat Packing Special Investigator Act, which would create the “Office of the Special Investigator for Competition Matters” within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Packers and Stockyards Division.

The new USDA special investigator would have a team of investigators, with subpoena power, dedicated to preventing and addressing anticompetitive practices in the meat and poultry industries and enforcing the nation’s antitrust laws. They would coordinate and act in consultation with the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission and create a new bridge between the USDA and the Department of Homeland Security to protect the continuation of the food supply and increase national security, Tester’s release said. With a team of dedicated staff, the USDA will have the ability to deeply investigate issues facing producers, safeguard producers by enforcing the Packers and Stockyards Act, and protect America’s food supply chain and national security.

He also praised Biden’s order for dealing with a major topic amongst ag producers in recent years — the right to repair equipment.

The order encourages the Federal Trade Commission to limit equipment manufacturer’s ability to restrict the use of independent repair shops or do DIY repairs.

In the Packers and Stockyards Act portion of the lengthy executive order, Biden directed the secretary of agriculture to consider multiple actions including

• reinforcing the interpretation of the act that it is not necessary to show industry-wide harm to show a violation of the act;

• providing clear rules that identify practices that violate the act due to being unfair, unjustly discriminatory or deceptive;

• adopting anti-retaliation protections;

• ensuring consumers have labels enabling them to choose products made in the United States, and

• setting measures to improve price discovery, increase transparency and improve the functioning of the cattle and other livestock markets.

Montana Farmers Union President Walter Schweitzer said in release he is excited that Biden is addressing several issues that Farmers Union has been discussing.

“Farmers Union has been asking the president, Congress, (Department of Justice) and the USDA for decades to address the anticompetitive practices of the corporate monopolies,” he said.

He praised the order addressing other issues MFU has pushed for, such as access to markets, right to repair and labeling food products.

Farmers Union and other groups have been pushing for stronger enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act for years.

“For decades the multi-national packers have dominated the market and decreased our food security,” Schweitzer said in the release. “The pandemic put a microscope on this broken food system. We must enforce anti-trust laws so that producers will get a fair price for their product, and consumers will always have access to affordable and nutritious food.”