7 May 2008

2 minute read

North America

But R-CALF say they took some success from the conference, claiming that many areas of discussion had been opened up, which may well be of benefit to American cattle farmers.

“While we did suffer that particular defeat on the packer ban, which was a huge disappointment, we must thank our champions on this issue who argued strenuously that the packer ban is needed to maintain the independence of U.S producers who market their livestock into an extremely concentrated market,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard. “And while we are deeply disappointed that the Conference Committee chose to defend the anticompetitive practices of a handful of multinational meatpackers at the expense of hundreds of thousands of independent cattle producers, we maintain our resolve to continue the fight to reclaim our competitive markets.

“It’s also very important to recognize that we had a number of victories and made significant progress in some areas with this Farm Bill, and chief among them is that we have a Livestock Title in the Farm Bill for the first time ever,” he continued. “Country-of-origin labeling (COOL) has been significantly strengthened and is scheduled to be implemented this fall.

“Again, although we lost the packer ban, we won some very important reforms for our industry, and R-CALF demonstrated to Congress and the meatpacker lobby that we are an effective force that will continue to grow in strength to reclaim our competitive markets,” Bullard concluded.

The current, 2002 Farm Bill was extended to May 16, 2008, and the new, 2007 Farm Bill must now be voted on by both the Senate and the House and signed by the President before it becomes law.

TheCattleSite News Desk