Legislation Introduced To Help Producers, Processors Market Beef

Bipartisan legislation was introduced last week that would create new opportunities for cattle producers and processors to market  beef products. Brought forth by U.S. Reps. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota and Henry Cuellar of Texas, the Direct Interstate Retail Exemption for Certain Transactions (DIRECT) Act of 2021 would allow retail quantities of meat processed under state inspection to be sold across state lines through e-commerce, providing beef producers and local processors alike with more options to market direct-to-consumers.

“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted an urgent need for our industry to expand opportunities for state-inspected meatpackers. NCBA acted quickly last year, advocating to allow more beef to be safely sold online across state lines. The DIRECT Act will allow cattle producers and smaller beef processors to more easily evolve to meet the growing demand for e-commerce sales,” said NCBA Policy Division Chair Todd Wilkinson, a rancher from South Dakota.  

Currently, many states have state meat and poultry inspection programs approved by the Food Safety and Inspection Service as “at least equal to” standards set under the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) and Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA). However, under the existing framework, state-inspected products only can be sold interstate if approved to do so under the Cooperative Interstate Shipping Program (CIS).