Proposed USDA rule defines ‘unfair’ meat industry practice
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(Greater Dakota News Service) A proposed rule from the U.S. Department of Agriculture would clarify fair practices in the American meat industry.
The Fair and Competitive Livestock and Poultry Markets rule would amend regulations under the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act to define "unfair practices" as business conduct which harms the market and market participants.
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Just four companies process about 85 percent of American beef--the result of a long process of corporate consolidation starting in the 1980s and was exposed during COVID-era market disruptions.
Nick Nemec, a longtime farmer and rancher, said the proposed rule could help.
"If we had -- you know, I don't know what the right number is -- a dozen, 20 packing plants slaughtering beef, then there'd be real competition in the marketplace," Nemec pointed out.
Vice President Kamala Harris, in a speech last week, said competition helps drive down prices. She also promised to support small businesses and implement a first-ever federal ban on price gouging, an approach her opponents called "price control."
Current laws against price gouging exist at the state level and some states do not have laws on it at all.
In South Dakota, Nemec runs a cow-calf operation and said while he does not deal directly with the big four beef corporations, he and his peers still feel the effects of the monopoly.
"We're the little bitty pipsqueaks at the bottom of the food chain," Nemec observed. "There's nothing we can do about it. I mean, we're at the whim of the market."
The comment period for the proposed rule ends Sept. 11.
