USDA has announced its latest efforts to address the competition issue in the markets and create a more level playing field.
The department has finalized the first of its three rules under the Packers and Stockyards Act, which relates more to the poultry industry. In addition, USDA shared several other updates based on President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order to promote competition in the economy. These include clarifying domestic origin requirements to sell meat to USDA for nutrition assistance programs and creating a position for a chief competition officer at USDA.
“This rule and the other actions we are announcing today bring transparency and accountability to transactional relationships across the poultry industry, seed industry and federal procurement, and they are critical steps in USDA’s competition and farmer fairness,” said USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack in a statement.
New updates
In addition to releasing a final rule for poultry growers, the Biden administration announced three related updates to help boost competition.
The Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is clarifying that meat products must be from animals born, raised and slaughtered in the U.S. to meet the domestic origin requirements for USDA’s commodity procurement program. Food products are procured domestically for use in nutrition assistance programs, and it was determined the current guidelines for beef, pork, lamb and bison products were not as clear as other products, USDA said.
“This clarification to the domestic origin requirement will ensure U.S. producers reap the full benefit of USDA purchase programs and recipients of nutrition assistance programs benefit from domestically produced meat products,” the department said.
Tanner Beymer, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association senior director of government affairs, told WLJ that a very small percentage of beef goes into the USDA commodity procurement program and that he sees the domestic origin requirements update more of a precursor to USDA’s Product of the USA rule that is in the works.
The administration also announced the creation of the AMS chief competition officer to “formalize and enhance implementation of key competition policy priorities.” In addition, the officer will support Packers & Stockyards Act enforcement, seed transparency and competition, and partnerships with state attorneys general, USDA said.
There is limited information so far on the new officer position, but Beymer said the role would fall under the jurisdiction of USDA’s Packers and Stockyards Division, which is already significantly underfunded and understaffed. He likened the new role to the administration reinventing the wheel as opposed to addressing the meat of the issue.
The third update is regarding competition and innovation in seeds. AMS said it is holding seed companies accountable by requesting companies examine how they are “providing variety transparency to farmers at the point of sale, disclosing the variety to growers usually at the time of purchase and no later than the commencement of shipment.”
Final rules
Last summer, USDA announced it would begin issuing a series of three rules to increase transparency and boost competition in the ag markets. Two rules have been announced so far, with the first rule the subject of USDA’s recent announcement, and a third rule set to be released later this year.
The first rule, the Transparency in Poultry Grower Contracting and Tournaments final rule, amends the Packers and Stockyards Act with the intention of increasing transparency for poultry growers. The rule requires live poultry dealers to give critical information about terms of their agreements to poultry growers, along with provide tournament-specific disclosures of inputs to growers who are paid using a poultry grower ranking system.
Once the final rule is published in the Federal Register it can be viewed in its entirety by visiting regulations.gov and searching for document ID AMS-FTPP-21-0044.
USDA’s second rule, which addresses inclusive competition and market integrity rules under the Packers and Stockyards Act, has been sent to the White House for review. The third rule is set to be proposed by the end of the year. — Anna Miller, WLJ managing editor
