USDA Working To Make Livestock Market “More Fair”

Back to 2011, as Ag Secretary, Tom Vilsack said.

"Livestock and poultry marketplaces now only become more concentrated they've become vertically integrated and with that there is the risk of folks being treated unfairly"

And so he announced rules to correct that. The Trump administration nixed those rules, and worked on crafting its own. Now in 2021, Secretary Vilsack, again, just announced that USDA will begin work again on proposed rules to support enforcement of the 100 year old law that was originally designed to protect poultry and livestock producers from unfair practices in the meat market. 

"At the end of the day this is about making sure that producers have a fair shake in the market. And to have that fair shake there has to be competition there has to be openness there has to be a clear understanding, if you will, of what constitutes fair practice and what doesn't."

He said that's what the new rules would be designed to do with the hoped-for result, "to create a more open, more transparent, and fairer market for our producers"

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