BY RICHARD OSWALD http://www.dailyyonder.com/letter-langdon-shhhhhfarm-bill/2011/11/21/3614 The less you hear about the farm bill, the more it’s going to hurt us all when it’s passed. There are just some things politicians can’t talk about ahead of ballot time. That’s why no one in Congress wants to utter those two little words “farm bill” before the 2012 elections. I could write pages on the farm bill, and anyone who’s never worked with one wouldn’t really understand. Most of us who have Read More …
Category: GIPSA Rule
The Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s agency that facilitates the marketing of livestock, poultry, meat, cereals, oilseeds, and related agricultural products, and promotes fair and competitive trading practices for the overall benefit of consumers and American agriculture.
GIPSA is part of USDA’s Marketing and Regulatory Programs, which are working to ensure a productive and competitive global marketplace for U.S. agricultural products.
The Agency’s Packers and Stockyards Program (P&SP) promotes fair business practices and competitive environments to market livestock, meat, and poultry. Through its oversight activities, including monitoring programs, reviews, and investigations, P&SP fosters fair competition, provides payment protection, and guards against deceptive and fraudulent trade practices that affect the movement and price of meat animals and their products. P&SP’s work protects consumers and members of the livestock, meat, and poultry industries.
The Agency’s Federal Grain Inspection Service (FGIS) facilitates the marketing of U.S. grain and related agricultural products by establishing standards for quality assessments, regulating handling practices, and managing a network of Federal, State, and private laboratories that provide impartial, user fee funded official inspection and weighing services.
Letter from Langdon: You Don’t Prune Roots
Richard Oswald http://www.dailyyonder.com/letter-langdon-you-dont-prune-roots/2011/10/04/3551 We liked the idea of hope. We would like better some action. An old rivalry was renewed again awhile back when my team, the Rock Port (Missouri) Bluejays traveled into Tarkio Indian territory for a game of football. Compared to Tarkio’s history, Rock Port always seemed modest. We have some nice homes in Bluejay country, but along just about every street in Tarkio there is at least one mansion. I suppose that dates back to Read More …
Market Reform Efforts Held Captive to Politics?
by Fred Stokes At the OCM Annual Conference in St. Louis in August of 2009, Phil Weiser, Deputy to Antitrust Chief Christine Varney, and J. Dudley Butler, Administrator of the Grain Inspection and Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), laid out an ambitious and historic plan to reform the agricultural marketplace. For the first time in our nation’s history, there was to be a joint DOJ/USDA initiative to restore a competitive marketplace for agriculture. Our antitrust laws were finally Read More …
OCM Needs YOU!
Anita ENDSLEY Executive Director The Organization for Competitive Markets is working diligently on behalf of farmers and ranchers to provide for fair, open, transparent and competitive markets. Washington is ripe with strife and we are at a CRITICAL JUNCTURE which will decide the future of how business is conducted in agriculture! “Big Ag” is marshalling its considerable forces against the Producer Rights rule known as the GIPSA Rule. Industrial Ag leaders are lobbying your representatives to make decisions Read More …
Conference Wrap-Up
Anita Poole-Endsley Executive Director The 13th Annual OCM Conference entitled “Voices Rising from the Land” was held on August 12-13, 2011 in Kansas City, MO at the Westin Crown Center. The meeting carried three themes which illustrate the strategy used by the organization to fight for fair, open and competitive markets: legislation, litigation, and alternative solutions. According to Fred Stokes, former OCM Executive Director and current OCM President, litigation has not been completely successful, and efforts at passing Read More …
Is the Independent U.S. Family Farm About to Be History?
Thomas F. “Fred” Stokes President Back in July of 1999, journalist Bill Bishop wrote a piece in the Lexington Herald Leader, entitled; “Corporate Interests plow deep”. In the article he said; “In the new agriculture, all farmers will work for “the man”. They’ll raise his chickens, turkeys, cattle, corn, tobacco, wheat and hogs. Farmers won’t farm; they’ll fulfill contracts. They will be hog-house janitors for Smithfield and plow jockeys for Cargill and ConAgra. ………. These companies don’t own the farm; Read More …
About Our New Executive Director
Anita Poole-Endsley was recently named the Executive Director for the Organization for Competitive Markets. Anita is an agricultural attorney who received both her J.D., and her LL.M. in Agricultural Law from the University of Arkansas. Following the completion of her education, Anita entered into private practice representing farmers and ranchers to ensure they were treated fairly by the companies with whom they contracted. Anita served for eight years as the Legal Counsel and Assistant to the President of Read More …
Letter from Langdon: Voices Rising
Published in The Yonder, 8/17/11 by Richard Oswald For the past 13 years, members of the Organization for Competitive Markets have gathered to talk about unfair markets and antitrust violations in the agriculture business. The voices were rising again last week in Kansas City. Agriculture and the people who build lives around it have never really been known to cry wolf. We seek understanding and occasionally we argue for fair treatment, but creating problems where none exist is Read More …