R-CALF wants GIPSA rules now

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R-CALF USA is keeping alive discussion of the 90-day extension of the public comment period for USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration’s competition rules. According to R-CALF USA the U.S. meatpacker lobby – principally the American Meat Institute, National Meat Association, National Pork Producers Council and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, placed what it calls – tremendous political pressure – on USDA to gain the extension.

According to R-CALF USA, - the misinformation they spread to achieve their desired outcome should be a wake-up call for every U.S. livestock producer and consumer. The organization claims - the meatpacker lobby represents a select group of meatpackers and a select group of preferred livestock suppliers that are opposed to GIPSA’s competition rule because it would require them to begin operating in full compliance with the nearly 90-year-old Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921.

R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard says - GIPSA’s competition rule would protect and preserve competition in the market where the highly concentrated meatpackers purchase slaughter-ready cattle from independent cattle feeders. He says - the meatpacker lobby does not want GIPSA’s competition rule to protect and preserve the cash market because the competition in the cash market is what stands in their way of exerting price-depressing control over the entire livestock production chain.