18 December 2007

3 minute read

North America

R-Calf is angry that an amendment in the 2007 Farm Bill, that they believed would have restored the spirit of the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 (PSA) against the unfair and deceptive acts of meatpackers, had been defeated.

And they believe the defeat came as the result of an 11th hour debate in the Senate and intense lobbying by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) and the multinational meatpackers.

R-Calf said that recent court decisions had placed the meat packers under intense pressure.

"The recent court decisions in the Pickett vs. Tyson lawsuit effectively negated the Packers and Stockyards Act's prohibitions against restraining commerce, creating monopolies, and controlling and manipulating livestock prices," said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard.

"This amendment, sponsored by Senators Tester and Grassley, would have restored the original intent of the PSA, which was to preserve open and competitive markets for the hundreds of thousands of disaggregated producers who must sell their livestock into a highly concentrated marketing structure.

"This amendment made it clear that these unlawful practices remain unlawful, regardless of the reason that packers have chosen to engage in such unlawful actions."

The amendment, known as the "no business justification" amendment, sponsored by Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana., and Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, addressed what R-Calf described as an untenable barrier raised by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the Pickett vs. IBP lawsuit, in which the court found that price control and manipulation was not unlawful, so long as the packer claimed a "business justification" for engaging in an otherwise unlawful act.

R-CALF USA was among nearly 170 producer-oriented organisations that sent a joint letter to the U.S. Senate in support of the amendment.

However, the action group said that the meatpacker lobby, consisting of consists of NCBA, the National Chicken Council, the National Pork Producers Council, the National Turkey Federation, American Foods Group, the American Meat Institute, Cargill, Christensen Farms, Hatfield Quality Meats, Hormel Foods, National Beef, the National Meat Association, Seaboard Corp., Smithfield Foods, Swift & Co., Tyson Foods, and U.S. Premium Beef, formally named the Meat & Poultry Promotion Coalition, sent alarmist letters to the Senate to urge defeat of the Tester/Grassley amendment.

"The meatpacker lobby used unfounded and alarmist scare tactics to strip away support for this bipartisan effort to restore competitiveness to the U.S. livestock market by claiming that this 'no business justification' amendment would prevent packers from paying premiums for quality or end-branded beef programs," Mr Bullard said.

"Those claims are totally unfounded. In fact, those claims are so outrageous that they defy any semblance of common sense or logic. What is clear is that this anti-producer coalition wants the multinational packers to control both our U.S. livestock industry and our markets.

"It should now be crystal clear to U.S. cattle producers that the packer lobby led by NCBA fully supports the decision in Pickett vs. Tyson that allowed Tyson to circumvent the Packers and Stockyards Act, even after causing $1.28 billion in damages to U.S. cattle producers," Mr Bullard asserted.

"R-CALF USA will continue its fight to defend the economic interests of the nation's farmers and ranchers whose livelihoods depend on an open and competitive market. This is essential if we are to prevent the U.S. cattle industry from ending up as another vertically integrated industry, like the poultry and hog industries have."

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