This past week, almost seven million pounds of JBS beef were recalled after 57 people in 16 states were sickened by Salmonella poisoning. No surprise here. Just last year, JBS was caught exporting rotten beef worldwide and trying to cover up the stench using cancer-causing acid products. The latest JBS tainted meat scandal not only continues to ring alarm bells about the safety of JBS beef, but it also shows how few choices consumers actually have in the Read More …
We had our day in court. On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit heard oral arguments in our lawsuit challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s unlawful rollback of critical protections designed to safeguard family farms and ranches from predatory and retaliatory practices by big agribusiness corporations. Appearing on behalf of the Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) and independent farmers, Democracy Forward argued that USDA acted unlawfully in withdrawing the Farmer Fair Practices Rules, or GIPSA Rules, last Read More …
The 2019 beef checkoff budget is out, and global meatpacking corporations and their industry lobbying groups are the winners once again while American family farmers and ranchers continue to be taxed to fund their own demise. Under federal law, farmers of certain commodities (including pork, eggs, beef, and corn) are required to pay a portion of their sales into checkoff programs. These mandatory fees are intended to be used by the U.S. government to research and promote demand Read More …
America has a monopoly problem, and no sector is worse than food and agriculture. In just the past two years, chemical and seed company acquisitions and mergers have allowed three companies to control two thirds of the crop seed and nearly 70% of the agricultural chemical markets. The four largest multinational corporations have gained control of 71% of the pork market, 85% of the beef market and 90% of the grain market. Economists agree that more than 40% Read More …
Do you want a food system in which the biggest cheaters win, and global monopolies control our food supply? It’s what we have today. Current USDA policy allows cheap imported meat to be mislabeled “Product of U.S.A.” Global food corporations find it very profitable to deceive U.S. consumers and drive U.S. family farmers and ranchers out of business while our government looks the other way. It’s time to stop this criminal practice, so we at Organization for Competitive Read More …
By Rohit Chopra and Julie Margetta Morgan This is an excerpt of Mr. Chopra and Ms. Margetta Morgan’s report, “Unstacking the Deck: A New Agenda to Tame Corruption in Washington.” View the full report on the Roosevelt Institute’s website. In an October 2017 poll, Americans named “corruption of government officials” as their top fear, ranking it above North Korea’s use of nuclear weapons. According to the Pew Research Center, the last decade has been the longest stretch of low trust Read More …
Today is the last day to reserve your hotel room at a discounted rate for OCM’s 20th Annual Food and Agriculture Conference. Rooms are booking up fast so don’t miss your opportunity to join the discussion on how we can break the corporate stranglehold on our food system. REGISTER AND BOOK YOUR ROOM We’re excited to highlight one of our outstanding panels, “Voices from Our Communities.” This conversation will focus on how market concentration impacts all of us, especially Read More …
Checkoff programs have been instrumental in the history of agricultural advertising. Famous campaigns such as “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner.” have been paid for using family farmers’ checkoff tax dollars. However, checkoff programs have fallen under the control of big agribusiness interests, and oftentimes the billions of dollars paid into checkoff programs by hard working family farmers and ranchers end up being used to lobby for policies that hurt them. This could change in the 2018 Farm Bill Read More …