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Livestock leaders criticize ‘GIPSA rule’; USDA responds

Efforts by the USDA to implement the so-called “GIPSA rule” drew criticism from livestock industry leaders this week at a House Agriculture subcommittee hearing.

Kansas rancher and cattle feeder Tracy Brunner, president of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, says they’re concerned the rule will make USDA “the ultimate arbiter of how cattle are marketed”.

“Our industry has worked for years in developing new and innovative ways to market cattle,” Brunner said. “Alternative marketing arrangements have been studied by USDA and independent groups and the results show that these alternatives benefit producers and consumers alike.”

Similar concerns were expressed by North Carolina pork producer David Herring, testifying on behalf of the National Pork Producers Council.

“We have grave concerns it will mirror the 2010 proposal,” Herring said. “If it does, the livestock industry will be fundamentally and negatively changed.”

The GIPSA rule was first proposed in 2010 to implement provisions included in the 2008 farm bill.  The intention was to better protect producers that contract with processors. However, livestock groups say that proposal went far beyond the issues Congress asked USDA to address and they fear the new version will do the same.  They’re calling on Congress to once again block implementation of the rule, as it has done every year since 2010.

The criticism from livestock leaders prompted a strong response from the USDA. A statement provided to Brownfield on Wednesday by USDA press secretary Catherine Cochran says “any efforts to once again block GIPSA’s rules to ensure fair treatment of livestock and poultry growers are not acceptable to this Administration, and do not look out for the best interests of America’s farmers, ranchers and rural communities”.

The statement continues by saying, “the incessant GIPSA rider demonstrates a complete lack of concern for honest, hardworking families. Maybe some people don’t remember the hardships recently suffered by our farming families in 2008 and 2009 when producers in Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas lost millions of dollars and their livelihoods when just one of the major poultry businesses went under. The focus should be on how to ensure a fair marketplace and a level playing field for our farming families—nothing less.

“Just ask the American Farm Bureau Federation, the National Farmers Union and the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition—groups that represent our farmers—and you’ll hear that this GIPSA rider is bad for family farmers, bad for the agriculture industry and bad for our rural communities.

“Everyone deserves a level playing field. Everyone deserves a fair shot.”