By Dave Dickey
For the nation’s chicken farmers, the last nine months have been breathtaking.
Poultry producers have been gamed, we might as well say plucked, for decades by chicken companies. Ever since the 1948 Chicken of Tomorrow contest, Big Poultry has found ways to increase its profitability at the hands of many individual farmers.
In July of 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order noting the inequities:
“Consolidation in the agricultural industry is making it too hard for small family farms to survive. Farmers are squeezed between concentrated market power in the agricultural input industries — seed, fertilizer, feed, and equipment suppliers — and concentrated market power in the channels for selling agricultural products. As a result, farmers’ share of the value of their agricultural products has decreased, and poultry farmers, hog farmers, cattle ranchers, and other agricultural workers struggle to retain autonomy and to make sustainable returns.”
But it is one thing to point out the problems and quite another to fix them. What is notable is the way in which the Biden Administration is attempting to level the playing field between chicken farmers and their Big Poultry overlords.
Thus far, USDA has proposed not one, not two, but three separate rules in the Federal Register directly targeting the nation’s chicken companies
Last November, USDA finalized a rule amending the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 by requiring live poultry dealers to disclose to chicken farmers information regarding their tournament systems, including ranking metrics that determine settlement payments. In a nutshell, the rule requires poultry companies to be more transparent regarding what specific investments contract poultry growers might need to make to be successful.
And then earlier this year, USDA proposed the Poultry Grower Payment Systems and Capital Improvement rule. The rule would end a Big Poultry practice of deducting from a chicken farmer’s base pay for work chicken companies deem inadequate. The rule still would allow Big Poultry to hand out performance bonuses, but under the rule those payouts can’t come through withholding money from producers finishing at the bottom of a tournament.
The rule also would require Big Poultry to specifically document how they make fair comparisons between individual growers. The comment period for the rule closed on Aug. 9.
And most recently, USDA has published the proposed Fair and Competitive Livestock and Poultry Markets rule. The rule would amend the Packers and Stockyards Act by specifically defining unfair practices as “conduct that harms market participants and conduct that harms the markets.” The rule would make it far easier for individual chicken farmers to sue Big Poultry without first having to show a “competitive injury.”
Public comment on the rule closes later this month.
It can’t be stressed enough how laser focused the Biden Administration has been on updating the Packers and Stockyards Act in the name of competitive competition and equality. But with inauguration day less than five months away, USDA will need to move with uncommon speed to publish final rules. And it goes without saying that the November elections will have a lot to say about what happens after inauguration day.
I have no doubts that if Donald Trump wins back the presidency that there will be an effort to undo whatever progress the Biden Administration has made to help chicken growers. After all, the first Trump administration withdrew an interim final rule, written by the Obama administration, that would have protected livestock producers from exploitation.
All of which begs the question: Where does presumed Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris stand on agriculture issues, in general, and this frontal assault on Big Poultry, in particular? Up to now agricultural issues have not been in Harris’ wheelhouse.
Harris’ endorsement by the United Farm Workers is illustrative, but not definitive on how she views Big Ag. UFW sees its mission as advocating for “legislative and regulatory reforms for farm workers covering issues such as overtime, heat safety, other worker protections, and pesticides.” In other words, protecting the little guy. Would Harris feel the same?
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