The summer’s bounty may feel far away, but even in January, farmers and ranchers are busy – unloading hay for cattle on the snowy range, selecting next summer’s most-delicious tomato seeds, or harvesting fresh grapefruit for your breakfast table.  Here in Washington, DC, we’re busy too:  members of Congress will return in just a few days, and they’ll debate the farm bill this year.

This opportunity to transform federal food and farm policy comes only once every five years.

We’ll need every voice – including yours – to achieve what we want: farm policy that helps family farmers produce healthy food, builds vibrant communities, and sustains the environment.

Our 2012 Farm Bill campaign calls for reforms that will:

• Ensure a sustainable future for American agriculture
• Create jobs and spur economic opportunities
• Equip rural communities for the 21st century
• Level the playing field for producers
• Support innovation for tomorrow’s farmers
• Protect our natural resources

We’ve made great progress already – both our Beginning Farmer and Rancher Opportunity Act and our Local Farms, Food, and Jobs Act are gaining momentum in Congress, and we want the contents of both of these crucial bills included in the 2012 Farm Bill.

What’s next?

Join us! Over the next year, we’ll ask you to speak up and help us fight for family farmers and ensure the future of sustainable agriculture.  You can help us keep the momentum into 2012 – share this alert with your friends and family and ask them to join our campaign for a Farm Bill that supports health, prosperity, and equity for family farmers and for our nation!

Thank you for all that you do,

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition Grassroots Team

• Measures to ensure that a poultry grower has received adequate notice that a poultry processor plans to suspend delivery of birds;
• Criteria for determining whether a requirement of additional capital investment over the life of a poultry or hog production contract growing arrangement or swine production constitutes a violation of the Packers and Stockyards Act;
• Requirement that a packer, swine contractor, or live poultry dealer has provided a reasonable period of time for a grower to remedy a breach of contract that could lead to termination of a production contract; and
• Arbitration provisions in production contracts that allow a producer or grower to decline arbitration and that detail criteria for USDA to use in determining if an arbitration process provides a meaningful opportunity for participation in the arbitration by a grower or producer.

On the positive side, the arbitration provision of the final rule is an improvement over the proposed rule.  Farmers who do not choose whether to be bound by an arbitration clause in a production contract are deemed by the rule to have declined to be bound by arbitration.

But the final rule also weakens important provisions of the proposed rule.  The proposed rule provided that a processor that requires a farmer to make initial and additional capital investments must also provide a reasonable opportunity for the farmer to recoup the investment over the life of the production contract.  The final rule limits the recoupment requirement to additional capital investments required after a production contract is entered into and omits the recoupment requirement for the initial capital investment.

The final rule also weakens a requirement that packers and processors provide poultry and livestock contract farmers with notice and a reasonable opportunity to remedy an alleged breach of a production contract.   The final rule includes a new broad exemption from the requirements if the packer or processor contends that food safety or animal welfare was concerned in the breach.  There are no safeguards or procedures in the final rule to ensure that packers and processors document these contentions.

The protections provided in this limited GIPSA final rule, which took more than one and one-half year to issue, are an important but very modest first step to ensuring farmers and ranchers a fair shake in dealing with meatpackers and poultry processors.  In 2010, USDA and the Department of Justice heard from farmers and ranchers across the U.S. about the failures of these agencies to enforce the law and improve regulations to actively and effectively address their concerns.

Since that time, the Obama Administration has dragged its feet on issuing final rules.  In November, the Administration announced that it was completely dropping, rather than refining, several provisions from  the GIPSA proposed rule that would provide fair markets for livestock farmers and ranchers, including a ban on packer-to-packer sales and the use of a single buyer at livestock auctions, as well as requirements for packers to retain records about the basis for pricing.

USDA also announced it was still considering and, therefore, delaying finalization of other measures in the proposed regulations including long-awaited elaboration on what constitutes illegal undue price preferences and the pivotal clarification that farmers and ranchers need not prove injury to competition in markets for their products but rather only need show that they had been injured by a deceptive or unfair practice.  These core sections of the rule would have to be revised and issued as new proposed rules, starting the long rulemaking process all over again.

This Administration announcement was followed closely by Congressional approval of a rider to the FY2012 Agricultural Appropriations measure that bars USDA from implementing in FY2012 any rules that would:

• eliminate the activist court-fashioned requirement that farmers and ranchers prove an injury to market competition from unfair or deceptive practices used against them as individuals by packers and processors;
• give definitions to unfair, unjustly discriminatory and deceptive practices or abuses;
• give definition to the prohibition on undue or unreasonable preferences;
• require packers and processors to make available sample production contracts;
• limit or modify the existing “tournament system” for that processors use to determine payments for poultry growers; and
• prohibit the implementation of any of the GIPSA proposed rules if the annual cost to the economy of such rules exceeds $100,000,000, while potential benefits will not be considered.

USDA was allowed to publish any rule not exceeding $100,000,000 in costs to the economy if the rule were published by December 9, 2011.  USDA did meet that deadline for the poultry and hog contract final rule.

In addition the agriculture appropriations bill, the minibus includes the Commerce-Justice-Science and the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development funding bills as well as a new continuing resolution, which extends FY 2011 funding levels through December 16, 2011 for programs that have not received an FY 2012 appropriation.  The current continuing resolution keeping the government funded expires on November 18.

The final FY 2012 agriculture appropriations bill provides for $19.8 billion in discretionary spending, which is $350 million below last year’s level and $2.5 billion below the President’s request.

For a comparison of the negotiated bill, known as a Conference Report, with the original House and Senate bills, you can download the latest version of our annual appropriations chart.

Raid on Conservation Programs

The final FY 2012 bill cuts more than $927 million from farm bill mandatory conservation, on top of the half billion dollar cut contained in the FY 2011 agriculture appropriations bill.  If we include the renewable energy programs, this number jumps to approximately $1.2 billion.  Conservation and renewable energy were the primary farm bill mandatory programs cut.  Commodity, crop insurance, and export subsidies were left unscathed, as was the SNAP (food stamps).

The final FY 2012 agriculture appropriations bill cuts the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) by $75.5 million, roughly 9 percent, relative to its FY 2012 farm bill-mandated level.  This cut will reduce the size of the 2012 CSP sign-up by more than 30 percent.

The final bill also cuts the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) by $350 million, or 20 percent.  The Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) and Grasslands Reserve Program (GRP) are cut by roughly $200 million (32 percent) and $30 million (25 percent), respectively, while the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP) and the Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) are cut by $50 million (25 percent) and $35 million (41 percent), respectively.  As in both the House and Senate bills, the Voluntary Public Access and Habitat Incentive Program (VPA-HIP) was zeroed out.

Taken together with what is rumored to be at least a $6 billion 10-year cut to conservation programs, the cuts to farm bill conservation programs would total $9 billion, or nearly 15 percent, considerably more than the proposed 10 percent cut to commodity and crop insurance subsidies in the pending farm bill deal.  NSAC has consistently said it will oppose a farm bill with a disproportional cut.

If one assumes that continued pressure on the agricultural appropriations bill from the $1 trillion reduction in appropriations over the next ten years approved by Congress in August will tend to keep forcing cuts to mandatory conservation, and if one further assumes that  the lackluster performance of the Agriculture Committees in defending their own mandatory spending during consideration of the FY 2012 appropriations bill will continue, it would then appear safe to say, based on the evidence at hand, the actual cut to conservation programs being contemplated now by the combined forces of the Appropriations and Agriculture Committees would be vastly higher, closer to $15 to $20 billion of ten years, or approaching a 30 percent cut.

In addition to the cuts to mandatory conservation funding, the bill cuts the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) conservation operations budget that pays for technical assistance by $44 million to $828 million.  NRCS uses conservation operations money to provide technical assistance to farmers and ranchers in the development of conservation plans and enrollment in conservation programs.  Lack of adequate technical assistance funding has become a chronic problem at USDA.

Energy Programs Slashed Too

A number of mandatory renewable energy programs were also cut in the conference bill.  Spending on the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) is capped at $17 million, which is a 62 percent cut below the $45 million in remaining (unobligated) FY 2012 funds.  The Renewable Energy for America Program (REAP) received only 31 percent ($22 million) of its farm bill-mandated funding.

Rural Development and Farm Loans

The final bill makes significant cuts to a number of critical programs that create jobs and help rural communities thrive.  The bill cuts the Value-Added Producer Grants (VAPG) program to $14 million, roughly 35 percent of its authorized level and 26 percent less than what went out the door in 2011.  Surprisingly, the conferees chose to adopt the House proposal to zero out the Rural Micro-entrepreneur Assistance Program (RMAP) completely in FY 2012, despite existing grantees being due technical assistance funding based on their micro lending to date.  The Rural Business Enterprise Grants program was cut by 37 percent to roughly $24 million, while the Rural Business and Industry (B&I) loans program was cut by 17 percent relative to FY 2011.  With the B&I cut, approximately $41 million will be available in FY 2012 for loan guarantees for local and regional food enterprises.

The final bill funds direct operating loans at close to $1.05 billion, as requested in the President’s budget.  Unfortunately, it also matches both bills’ funding for direct farm ownership (DFO) loans at $475 million, which is 27 percent lower than 2010 levels.  The FY 2011 agriculture appropriations bill first reduced the DFO loan program level from $650 million to $475 million.  Not surprisingly, this has resulted in a $129 million backlog of approved applications for DFO loans, nearly half of which are beginning farmers.  The chances of real estate deals remaining in play after long delays in receiving approved loans are slim, resulting in the loss of new farming opportunities.

Research, Education, and Extension

Fortunately, the conference report maintains level funding for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program at $19.2 million.  As has been the case for many years, this does not include the $10 million requested by USDA to launch the SARE federal-state matching program.

Funding for the Organic Transitions Research Program and the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) was also maintained at FY 2011 levels.  Farm bill mandatory funding for the Organic Research and Education Initiative (OREI), Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI), and Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) were left intact.

Finally, the bill funds the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service program (popularly known as ATTRA) at $2.25 million in FY 2012.  While not the $2.8 million funding level the program has maintained for many years, it is $2.25 million more than the zero dollars the program received in FY 2011 and thus an important step forward.  We are glad to see that this incredibly important program has been revitalized.

GIPSA Rule Travesty

One of the biggest travesties of all in the conference report is the Conference Committee’s handling of the livestock and poultry fair competition and contract reform rule, widely known as the “GIPSA rule” after the name of the agency (Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration) that issued the proposal.  The rule was mandated by the 2008 Farm Bill.

The final appropriations bill bars any rule to eliminate the activist court-fashioned requirement that farmers and ranchers prove an injury to market competition from unfair or deceptive practices used against them as individuals by packers and processors; proposed rules that give definitions to unfair, unjustly discriminatory and deceptive practices or abuses; proposed rules to give definition to the prohibition on undue or unreasonable preferences; and proposed rules requiring packers and processors to make available sample production contracts.   The bill also prevents any final rule or interim rule from being published or otherwise implemented if the rule concerns the poultry tournament system.

The conference bill also prohibits the implementation of any of the proposed rules if the annual cost to the economy of such rules exceeds $100,000,000, while potential benefits will not be considered.  If its costs do not exceed $100,000,000, the bill allows the remaining poultry rules to be implemented, if the rules are published in the Federal Register no later than December 9, 2011.  This means if OMB can get its act together in time, anything left by the Report of the Final Rule sent to OMB for consideration by USDA might squeak under the wire.  The Report requires a 60-day delay after publication before this rule could be become effective.

Background Maneuvering by USDA on GIPSA Rule

To understand the complex nature of the stipulations in the appropriations bill it helps to know what USDA proposed last week.  Just as the appropriations conference was about to start, USDA announced that it had sent some of the GIPSA rules proposed by the agency in June 2010 to the Office of Management & Budget (OMB) as a Final Rule.  These rules focus on the poultry sector and include provisions in the 2008 Farm Bill concerning suspension of delivery of birds by poultry processors, measures addressing additional capital requirements, such as improvements to poultry houses, required after growers enter producer contracts with poultry processors, measures concerning notice for breach of contract, and requirements for processors to provide sample swine and poultry contracts.

USDA also sent to OMB, as an Interim Rule open to additional comment, the provision from the proposed rule on poultry tournament systems, which are used by the processors to compare poultry growers against each other in determining payment for their birds.

USDA decide to completely drop several provisions from the fair markets for livestock portion of the proposed rule, including a ban on packer-to-packer sales and the use of a single buyer at livestock auctions, as well as requirements for packers to retain records about the basis for pricing.

Finally, USDA announced it was still considering and, therefore, delaying finalization of other measures in the proposed regulations including eliminating the need for farmers and ranchers to prove injury to competition in markets for their products in addition to showing that they had been injured by a deceptive or unfair practice.  These core sections of the rule would be revised and issued as new proposed rules, starting the long rulemaking process all over again.

The conference agreement follows the USDA announcement closely, with the major change being upending the reform of the tournament system.  Otherwise, the agreement allows for the contract reform provisions that are in the process of becoming final to proceed, and then effectively kills everything else.  Many observers feel this is not a coincidence but rather something orchestrated ahead of time by the Administration and the industry giants, though we are unaware of any specific evidence of such collusion.

Local and Regional Food Systems

As we previously reported, the House bill contained an amendment offered by Virginia Foxx (R-NC) to strip all FY 2012 funding for USDA’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Initiative (KYF2).  This was a misguided attack on an initiative that does not even have its own budget, but rather coordinates various programs and activities across multiple USDA agencies that work with farmers and ranchers producing for local and regional markets.  We are happy to report that the Conference Report does not include the Foxx amendment.

At the same time, however, it does retain some anti-KYF2 language that first showed up in the House agriculture appropriations report.  The Conference Report directs USDA to post on its website prior to any travel primarily related to KYF2, information including the agenda and the cost of such travel.  It also directs USDA to submit to Congress, within 90 days of enactment of the bill, a report on the impacts of KYF2 over the previous two years, as well as justification for spending on the initiative in the fiscal year 2013 budget explanatory notes.

As we reported when the House language was first released earlier this year, we are increasingly concerned about this ideologically driven and misguided attack on a growing and increasingly popular segment of American agriculture.

We hope that USDA goes one step beyond the new Conference Report requirement and also documents agendas and travel costs for all USDA travel primarily related to conventional national and multinational commodity markets as well.  Such a dual track reporting system would actually be quite educational!

Earlier Appropriations Actions

The House passed its agriculture appropriations bill in June of this year.  That bill included a $3 billion, or 14 percent, cut to discretionary spending for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  The House bill also included a $1 billion cut to mandatory conservation programs.

The Senate passed its agriculture appropriations bill in early September, proposing to cut $192 million from discretionary programs and taking roughly $742 million, or 12 percent, from farm bill mandatory conservation programs, on top of the half billion dollar cut contained in the FY 2011 agriculture appropriations bill.

Our previous reporting included full descriptions of the funding levels for conservation, rural development, credit, and research programs contained in the House bill and in the Senate bill.

After the Senate completed its bill, the House and Senate conferees were selected and the two sides went to work on a negotiated bill.  The Conference Report must now be sent back to both the House and Senate for a final vote before FY 2012 funding levels are set.

The Agricultural Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012 is currently working its way through Senate floor action, with final passage expected to occur on or about November 1.  We issued a full rundown on the measure and the voting to date earlier.

No action will be taken in the Senate bill with respect to the GIPSA rule.  Earlier this year, the House approved its version of the Agricultural Appropriations measure and included in it a rider that would prohibit USDA from issuing the final rule.

NSAC strongly supports the rule and has joined with our members and with other groups in encouraging its immediate finalization.  We also strongly oppose the House rider and oppose its inclusion in the final appropriations bill.  We applaud Senators Harkin and Johnson for standing up for fair competition!

Senator Johnson stated on the floor:  “Independent farmers and ranchers must have an opportunity to leverage a decent price for their products.  Market consolidation has done a severe disservice to our producers, and it is critically important that we maintain market access and price discovery options for independent farmers and ranchers.  I am also fully supportive of GIPSA’s authority to continue the rulemaking process as directed in the 2008 Farm Bill.  The proposed rule takes an important first step toward finally enabling livestock producers to get a fair shake in the marketplace.”

He also brought up how a letter written by 190 organizations from across the country was recently sent to Congress outlining the important protections provided for in the proposed rule and urging Congress to allow the rulemaking process to continue.

Senator Harkin pointedly noted that “contrary to some of the arguments that are being made, the topics and subject matter covered in the proposed rule, and which therefore likely would be encompassed in the final rule, are entirely consistent with the rulemaking process that the 2008 farm bill directed the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct and with the authority provided by the Packers and Stockyards Act.”

He went on to explain how “the proposed rule would clarify what many believe to be a misinterpretation of the act by some courts that have held that an individual grower or producer cannot succeed on a claim for harm suffered from a violation of the act without an additional showing of harm to competition in the broader market.”  This is simply next to impossible for a grower to do.  He refuted the argument that  the proposed rule exceeds the authority of the USDA by stating the claims are “plainly unfounded.”

Harkin closed his remarks by responding to the studies claiming that the rule would be very costly and eliminate jobs, saying that they’re founded on misreading of the intent of the proposed rule and are extreme predictions of the effects of a rule that is designed to simply ensure fair and nondiscriminatory treatment of livestock and poultry producers and growers in the market.

The two floor statements can be found here.

When the PPC ran into financial troubles, in part from buying out another poultry processing company, PPC filed for bankruptcy and asked the bankruptcy court to allow PPC to idle the El Dorado plant and other PPC plants.  The governor of Louisiana offered to help broker a purchase by another poultry processing company of an idled plant in Louisiana, but withdrew the offer when PPC threatened to close another PPC plant still operating in Louisiana.

The El Dorado plant poultry growers objected to the idling of the PPC owned plants in the PPC bankruptcy proceedings.  They contended that the reason PPC idled the plants, rather than selling them, was to raise the price of chicken produced at other PPC plants.  The bankruptcy court excepted this claim from resolution in the bankruptcy proceeding, leaving the growers free to bring their PSA action against the company in federal district court.

The court agreed with the growers that there was sufficient evidence in PPC memos and the company’s actions to support the claim that PPC violated Section 192(e) by attempting to raise the price paid for poultry by idling and refusing to sell the poultry plants.  The court ordered PPC to pay a total of about $26 million to 91 of the poultry growers, with individual awards ranging $9,000 to nearly $900,000.   The awards were based estimates of the income the farmers could have expected from 2009 through 2015, if the PPC plant had not been idled by PPC in violation of PSA Section 192(e).  On Monday, October 3, officials at the reorganized PPC, now part of the JBS SA, announced that they would appeal the judge’s decision.

JBS SA, a Brazilian company that is one of the world’s largest meat and poultry packing conglomerates, ultimately bought a majority share in PPC as part of the bankruptcy workout.  JBS paid off PPC creditors, except most of the contract growers who were not affiliated with the company.  JBS SA also gave the PPC shareholders a 36-percent stake in the reorganized company.

In addition, USDA paid about $60 million in grants to states where PPC poultry producers had their contracts cancelled out without compensation by the PPC bankruptcy.   To qualify for funding from this USDA poultry growers assistance program, poultry producers were required to have had their integrator contracts canceled, as a result of the PPC insolvency, between May 1, 2008 and July 1, 2010, and been unable to enter into a subsequent contract for the affected production.  Payments were based on up to 95 percent of the producer’s most recent 12 months of receipts subject to a pro rata reduction to keep the total payment limit at $60 million.  USDA made the payments under authority in the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act that allows USDA to “reestablish farmers’ purchasing power by making payments” associated with “normal production of an agricultural commodity for domestic consumption.”

The state of Louisiana also provided up to $50 million to help Foster Farms buy out the idled Pilgrim’s Pride plant in Farmersville, Louisiana.

The bill would prohibit meatpackers from removing live cattle or other livestock from the competitive marketplace without first negotiating a firm base price for the livestock.  Increasingly, meatpackers gain an anti-competitive advantage over farmers and ranchers through un-priced formula contracts.  These contracts do not include a firm, specific price for the livestock.  A large number of livestock are removed from the negotiated or cash markets, which serve as the price discovery market for the entire cattle industry.  Ultimately, the prices paid by meatpackers under the un-priced formula contracts reflect the prices offered in these thin open markets.  With only a few meatpacking firms controlling much of the processing capacity in the U.S., many farmers and ranchers can be forced to accept the un-priced contracts or lose access to processing facilities.

The Livestock Marketing Fairness Act would:

• Require marketing agreements to have a firm base price derived from an external source.  This guarantees that local contract prices are not subject to manipulation by packer-owned herds.

• Require future forward contracts for livestock (cattle, hogs, and lambs) to be traded in public markets where buyers and sellers can witness bids and make their own offers.  This openness ensures market competition through multiple offers.

• Exempt producer-owned cooperatives, packers with low volumes, and packers who own only one processing plant from the above requirements.  This exemption targets the source of price manipulation.  It ensures that the business practices of small family-owned processors, which are not conducive to manipulating prices, are not impacted by the law.

• Guarantee that trading is done in quantities that provide market access for both small and large livestock producers.

The Antitrust Division has also taken some antitrust actions in the agricultural sector under Varney’s watch.  Most recently, on May 10, 2011, the Antitrust Division lodged a complaint against the sale of a Tyson Foods poultry processing to George’s Inc. poultry in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.  The complaint contended that sale, which would leave George’s as the major poultry processor in the region, would give the company sufficient market power to depress the price offered to farmers for their services in growing poultry.

The action was noteworthy because it was brought under a monopsony theory, which applies when a large number of sellers are faced with few buyers who can depress the price offered to the sellers.  Most antitrust cases brought by the Department address monopoly situations in which many buyers are confronted by a few sellers who can control and raise the price paid by buyers.

On June 30, the Antitrust Division filed a proposed Final Judgment with the federal court hearing the complaint.  The settlement must be approved by the judge.  Under the proposed settlement, George’s agrees to make capital improvements to the chicken processing plant that could allow a significant increase in the number of chickens that will be processed at the facility.  The improvements include the installation of a special freezer and deboning equipment, which will allow George’s to produce a variety of highly valued products at its two plants located in the Shenandoah Valley.

The Justice Department concluded that as a result of these improvements, George’s will have the incentive and ability to increase its local poultry production, thereby increasing its demand for grower services and averting the likely adverse competitive effects arising from the acquisition.  In addition, the Antitrust Division announced that it will monitor George’s efforts to improve the plant until the new equipment is installed and operational.

In a recent farewell address, Christine Varney noted that the antitrust laws cannot solve all the problems faced by farmers and ranchers in their relations with processors and packers.  The George’s settlement illustrates this conclusion.  The increase in the size and upgrades to the processing operation purchased by George’s will likely raise the company’s requirements for poultry.  But the antitrust settlement agreement does not include important protections that would be available to poultry farmers under the GIPSA proposed rule.  These protections include a base price for the chicken, prohibitions on retaliation against farmers who speak out about their contracts, measures to ensure that growers can recoup a significant part of their investment in costly poultry houses, and other measures summarized in a fact sheet prepared for growers by Rural Advancement Foundation International–USA.

“The next generation, that’s why we continue to do what we do”: African American farmers speak about experiences with land ownership and loss in North Carolina is about community-based participatory research with African-American farmers.  The farmers used photographs to document and talk about their experiences.  The farmers also identified strengths, concerns, and action steps with regards to farming and farmland loss in the community.  The article is available without a subscription in honor of Black Agricultural Awareness Week, July 10-16.

To read more about the history and fight against discriminatory lending, visit the Federation of Southern Cooperatives or NSAC’s most recent post on the Pigford settlement.  Find out more about our Farming Opportunities and Fair Competition issue committee and our work on behalf of minority farmers and ranchers or read our fact sheet.

The article Beliefs, attitudes, and propensity to buy locally produced food presented results of a study conducted in Nova Scotia to better understand beliefs and attitudes toward buying local food, identify barriers to buying locally produced food, and gauge public perceptions pertaining to labeling and promoting local food.

Planting seeds for an improved agrifood system?  Linking the aims of the alternative agrifood movement to executive action in the first two years of the Obama administration examined six selected initiatives and programs during President Obama’s first two years in office to analyze its strategies for transforming the food system.

Subscribe to JAFSCD, check out the abstracts for free, or explore if an educational institution near you has a subscription to JAFSCD to obtain the full issue.

With its power over farmers and ranchers threatened, the meatpacking and poultry processing industry has worked with congressional allies to launch a full out attack on the GIPSA proposed rule.  Last month, the House Agriculture Appropriations bill included a rider that would prevent USDA from working to finalize the GIPSA proposed rule.  Earlier in the year, the House Agriculture Committee held hearings on the poultry sector and beef sector with agriculture sector witnesses limited to those affiliated with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Chicken Council and other trade associations that include packers and processors and that oppose the rule.

The title of the July 7 Small Business Subcommittee hearing was Regulatory Injury – How USDA’s Proposed GIPSA Rule Hurts America’s Small Businesses.  Not surprisingly, three of the four witnesses on the panel representing the agriculture sector were opposed to the GIPSA Proposed Rule and were affiliated with trade associations, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the National Meat Association, and the National Turkey Federation which include packers or processors as members.

The highlight of the panel was the testimony of Bob Junk, with the Fay-Penn Economic Development Council in Pennsylvania, an NSAC member organization.  Junk spoke to the drastic loss of small and mid-sized farmers and ranchers who raise livestock and poultry and the adverse impact of this loss on rural communities.  He spoke about how the GIPSA proposed rule could help stem that loss with fair and open markets and contract protections that could keep farmers and ranchers on the land and more dollars flowing through rural communities.

Junk was previously the President of the Pennsylvania Farmers Union for 10 years and he noted that both the National Farmers Union (NFU) and the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) oppose congressional attempts to block finalization of the GIPSA proposed rule.  Both these organizations represent farmers and ranchers but do not include meatpackers and processors as members.  Bob also included with his testimony a letter in support of the GIPSA proposed rule, signed by 144 organizations including the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and delivered to Congress on April 21, 2011.

One glaring example of inaccurate statements about the GIPSA proposed rule was provided by Ms. Robbie LeValley, speaking on behalf of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.  The LeValley family markets one-third of the calves from their ranch through Homestead Meats, a packing and direct marketing company the family owns with six other families.  Ms. LeValley stated her belief that the GIPSA proposed regulation’s ban on packer-to-packer sales of livestock would prevent her family from selling the remaining two-thirds of the calves directly to a packer.

This is clearly an inaccurate reading of the proposed rule.  It is an example of why USDA must get the GIPSA rule finalized and published to prevent the large-scale packer and processor sector from spreading this type of blatant misinformation and to end fear-mongering about the proposed-rule.  It will also allow USDA to follow normal rulemaking procedures, and accept the many substantive comments and suggestions for improving the rule, such as NSAC’s recommendation that the proposed ban on packer-to-packer sales exempt small lots of livestock on a weekly or monthly basis for small packers and coops like Homestead Meats.

The public notice and comment rulemaking process exists for this very purpose – to solve problems and refine proposed rules so that the final rule reflects honest attempts to improve the draft proposal.  Sadly, though, the special interests that benefit from the status quo are not interested in honest exchange and improvements to the rule.  They simply want to tear it down and go back to the status quo that works against the interests of American farmers and ranchers.  We will continue to work with AFBF, NFU, R-CALF and many other national and regional farm organizations to stand up for this rule to create a fairer and more competitive marketplace.

On June 28th, NSAC and a broad coalition of farm, conservation, wildlife, and forestry organizations representing millions of Americans orchestrated a National Day of Action to protest huge cuts to farm bill conservation programs and an attack on local and regional food system development.

The agriculture appropriations bill the House of Representatives just passed slashes $1 billion from mandatory farm bill conservation funding and tells USDA to drop the Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food initiative.

Senate phones were ringing off the wall on Wednesday with callers urging their Senators to protect conservation and local and regional food system development funding.  The response was tremendous and we want to thank all of you who took the time to pick up the phone to protest these extreme and shortsighted cuts.

Still in play are two campaigns around the Agricultural Marketing Service plans to issue a National Leafy Green Marketing Agreement (NLGMA) and a Farm Credit Administration plan to be more responsive to the needs of small and mid-sized farmers and ranches producing for the local market.

Comments on the NLGMA are due on July 28th.  The most powerful “Big Ag” players in the leafy green industry are pushing this agreement that would add a second and conflicting layer of food safety standards and audits on top of FDA food safety rule.  It is a one size fits all rule with no alternative compliance measures for small and mid-sized growers of leafy greens.   See our NLGMA action alert for more details and to submit your own comment.

Comments on the Farm Credit Administration (FCA) Rule are due on July 25th.   The rule presents an exciting opportunity to help shape services and outreach to local and regional food producers.   FCA is the federally chartered agency that oversees the nationwide network of locally controlled and borrower-owned cooperative lending associations that make up the Farm Credit System (FCS).  FCS supplies nearly 40% of all U.S. farm financing and has the capacity to bring badly needed capital and services to local food producers, and to leverage other sources of capital for the task of rebuilding our local and regional food system infrastructure.  See our FCA alert for more details and to submit your comment.

Last but not least, NSAC participated in a call in day aimed at pushing the Obama Administration to get its final livestock market competition and contract fairness rule out the door.  One year ago the Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration issued a proposed rule that would reign in some of the worst practices of corporate packers and poultry companies.  Fair, open and transparent markets are essential to rural economic recovery but the rules appear to be stalled by the fierce and truth distorting lobbying efforts of Big Packers and Processors.  More than 5,000 calls came in to the White House on June 20th telling the President that farmers have waited long enough for competitive markets and fair contracts.  Thanks to all of you that made that call!