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NeFU president: Seize opportunity for reform

The president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, John Hansen, is calling on livestock and dairy producers to “seize the opportunity for meaningful market reforms.”

Referring to efforts by the USDA and Department of Justice to evaluate non-competitive marketing practices and market concentration in the livestock industry, Hansen says it’s an opportunity that may never come again.

“If we want our country to continue to be the model that the rest of the world looks at—which is our traditional system of independent, family-farm, owner-operator agriculture—we need a massive overhaul,” Hansen says. “We need a Teddy Roosevelt-type overhaul of our food production system.”

Hansen says the “heavily concentrated and dysfunctional marketing system” amounts to, in his words, “the legalized looting of rural America.

“As consumers get more and more involved in food decisions and food awareness—where their food came from—we think there are some real opportunities to take back some territory that vertical integration and non-competitive marketplaces have stolen from us.”

Hansen says “it is high time the federal regulatory agencies stepped up to the plate and did their job to enforce the law.”

AUDIO: John Hansen (8 min MP3)

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