The Obama Administration has issued some new pro-farmer, pro-free-market, anti-corporate rules. After years of resistance from Republicans and Big Food, the USDA’s Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration issued three new “Farmer Fair Practices Rules” Wednesday to protect poultry growers from unfair practices by concentrated processors.
The White House explains the new GIPSA rules:
Rule #1 – the “scope” rule – means that poultry growers will no longer have to meet an impossibly high standard to get compensated when they are treated unfairly. The interim final “scope” rule makes clear to the courts – as has long been USDA’s interpretation – that farmers don’t have to demonstrate that an unfair practice by processors harms the entire industry in order to prove a violation of the Packers and Stockyards Act. This impossibly high standard had previously put small farmers at a disadvantage for decades when pursuing their rights under the law. With this new rule in place, if a farmer is being treated unfairly, they’ll now have their day in court and be able to win.
Rule #2 enumerates some of the specific unfair practices that violate the law. To make the rules more clear for processors and growers alike – and to help courts understand where to draw the line – the second rule being proposed today clearly outlines unfair practices for which growers can receive compensation. These practices include inaccurate or false weighing of birds, the abuse of arbitration procedures, the abrupt suspension of delivery of birds to a grower or termination of a contract without an opportunity for the farmer to get back into compliance. All of these types of activities would qualify as an unfair practice that would be compensated through a court proceeding. Processors can only treat growers differently if they have a legitimate business justification, not for arbitrary reasons. This protection is especially important to poultry growers who today often find it difficult to win in court even when they are treated unfairly.
Rule #3 reforms the poultry growing tournament system to make it more of a level playing field and avoid processors aiding and disadvantaging certain growers relative to others. Many poultry growers through the contract system are paid out based on a tournament how they perform against their peers; the bigger and better their birds turn out relative to other growers, the more money they make. However, because the processors own the birds, the feed, and other inputs, they can unfairly disadvantage or preference one grower over another as a way of forcing the growers to do things against their will or shut down dissent. The third rule, also proposed, will establish criteria to judge whether the processor is operating the ranking system in a manner that is fair to all growers. It will push back against the unequal bargaining power between poultry purchasers and poultry growers [Charlie Anderson, Senior Adviser to the Director of the National Economic Council, “Three USDA Actions to Help Farmers Get a Fair Shake, Explained,” WhiteHouse.gov, 2016.12.14].
The often pro-corporate Farm Bureau likes the new GIPSA rules:
These proposed rules will strengthen GIPSA’s ability to evaluate business practices in the poultry industry and better protect individual farmers from discriminatory treatment. America’s chicken farmers have long called for greater transparency and a level playing field in our industry, and we appreciate USDA’s efforts to hold companies accountable and give farmers a voice [Zippy Duvall, American Farm Bureau Federation president, statement, 2016.12.14].
Farmers Union likes the rules, too:
For too long, family livestock producers and poultry growers have endured a heavily concentrated market with little protection against unfair, anti-competitive practices. We are glad that this important set of rules is finally moving forward,” said NFU President Roger Johnson. “While the Farmer Fair Practice Rules do not fix all of the fraudulent practices in the livestock and poultry industries, these rules are certainly an important step in the right direction” [National Farmers Union, press release, 2016.12.14].
Meat groups aren’t happy. The National Pork Producers Council goes as far as to say that the Obama USDA is trying to hurt the nice rural folks who voted for Trump:
The National Pork Producers Council say the rules could potentially have the opposite of their intended effect and lead to more vertical integration in the sector as packers will be forced to produce more of their own hogs. NPPC CEO Neil Dierks said the rule “will be a boon to trial lawyers and a weapon (for) activist groups.”
“I can’t imagine a more devastating regulation on an industry,” Dierks said in a statement. “The rule, which creates legal uncertainty, will destroy opportunities for many in the U.S. pork industry, with no positive effect on competition, the regulation’s supposed goal.”
NPPC said the “illegitimate midnight rule” was “an apparent attack on rural America for its role in helping elect Donald Trump as president.” Vilsack called the allegations “absolutely absurd.”
“This has got nothing to do with the election of 2016,” Vilsack said, “this has everything to do with what’s fair to producers, and as long as I’m secretary, this department and this secretary is going to be on the side of producers” [Spencer Chase, “USDA Rolls out Final GIPSA Rule, Sparking Furious Reaction from Meat Groups,” Agri-Pulse, 2016.12.14].
We can hope Team Trump is too busy tootin’ for Putin and bribing bookers with ambassadorships for A-level Inaugural singers to pay any attention to agriculture and undo these farm-friendly rules to favor more corporate fascism. One supporter of the new GIPSA rules says they are more Trumpily populist than Trump’s transition team:
Mike Weaver, a West Virginia chicken grower and president of the Organization for Competitive Markets, said the Packers and Stockyards Act was created to protect growers from undue practices affecting individual producers. “This is not an anti-trust law,” Weaver said. “It’s a regulation to protect farmers from abuse from these multi-national corporation … If we have to prove harm to all competition, then it is protecting the companies, not the farmers.”
Weaver also called on President-elect Trump to defend the rules, citing Trump’s populist campaign to defend blue-collar folks against corporate America. Weaver said he realized Trump was looking to cull some regulations to drive economic growth. Weaver said he felt Trump should defend these rules.
“These regulations are designed to protect American family farmers,” Weaver said. “American family farmers came out from the woodwork to support Trump, and we helped put him in office and we need some consideration.”
Weaver went on to say he didn’t think Trump was paying consideration to family farmers since Trump’s transition team for Secretary of Agriculture doesn’t have any family farmers on it [Chris Clayton, “GIPSA Sides Widely Differ,” The Progressive Farmer, 2016.12.14].
Correction: Trump just hired an anti-Humane Society agitator who lives on a small Missouri livestock farm when he’s not racing sailboats to work on Trump’s USDA transition team alongside a former Pepsi lobbyist. I am not encouraged.
Weaver also called on President-elect Trump to defend the rules, citing Trump’s populist campaign to defend blue-collar folks against corporate America.
These poor, dumb sonsabitches that voted for populist Drumpf are going to reap a whirlwind of serious hurt. Bwahahahaha