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Grassley tries again with his ‘packer ban’ bill

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley has reintroduced legislation to ban packer ownership of livestock.

“I’ve put this bill in every year for the last 20 years, “Grassley says. “Sometimes we get it through the Senate on a farm bill, but we never get it through. But I don’t give up and sometime this is going to happen.”

Continued concentration and vertical integration in the meat industry is hurting family farmers, Grassley says.

“First the poultry industry, then we saw the pork industry going the same direction,” he says. “Today I receive consistent contact from cattlemen concerned that their industry is headed that way as well, to vertical integration.”

Grassley cites USDA figures showing the amount of cattle traded on the cash market declined from 52 percent in 2005 to 21 percent in 2015.

“That’s a very clear indication that the beef industry is headed the way of pork and poultry, which have cash-traded levels well below 20 percent.”

Grassley says packers are needed to harvest livestock, but he says adequate competition is also needed for “fair and efficient price discovery”.

AUDIO: Excerpts from Grassley’s conference call with ag reporters