The House Agriculture Committee on Thursday held a hearing titled “A Hearing to Review the State of the Livestock Industry.”
The hearing consisted of three separate panels of witnesses. The first panel included Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the second panel included USDA Sec. Tom Vilsack, and the third was an industry panel, which included:
- Todd Wilkinson, Vice President, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, DeSmet, SD
- Francois Leger, Owner, FPL Food, on behalf of the North American Meat Institute, Augusta, GA
- Scott Blubaugh, President, Oklahoma Farmers Union, on behalf of the National Farmers Union, Tonkawa, OK
- Scott Hays, Vice President, National Pork Producers Council, Monroe City, MO
- Brad Boner, Vice President, American Sheep Industry Association, Glenrock, WY
Referencing the Biden administration’s Executive Order on “Promoting Competition in the American Economy,” Sec. Vilsack discussed a range of actions he plans to take that would impact each major animal protein sector. Specifically, USDA plans to propose a rule addressing the use of poultry grower ranking systems beginning “later this year or early next year,” Sec. Vilsack said. He said USDA will also propose a rule regarding undue and unreasonable preferences under the Packers and Stockyards Act (PSA) next, followed by rulemaking regarding changing the requirement that a plaintiff demonstrate injury to competition in order to bring a suit under the PSA against an integrator.
In addition to GIPSA rulemaking, Sec. Vilsack detailed recently announced grant programs and loan guarantees to increase small and mid-sized meat and poultry processing capacity, changes to USDA “Product of USA” labels, and $700 million that USDA plans to allocate to frontline meat and poultry processing, grocery, and farm workers to compensate for pandemic-related expenses.
Sec. Vilsack, Sen. Grassley, and the industry panel also discussed a range of topics related to potential changes in the red meat sector.
An archived video of the hearing can be found here.
