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.

Big Beef

Mike Callicrate

Independent ranchers and animal rights activists don’t agree about much, except that it’s time to stop using federal tax dollars to support the meat lobby. By Siddhartha Mahanta | New America Foundation Imagine if the federal government mandated that a portion of all federal gas taxes go directly to the oil industry’s trade association, the American Petroleum Institute. Imagine further that API used this public money to finance ad campaigns encouraging people to drive more and turn up Read More …

Report chides animal ag policy

Mike Callicrate

Government has made ‘appalling lack of progress’ since 2008, center says; animal groups see bias Des Moines Register – October 23, 2013 A new report blames U.S. leaders for failing to take stronger action to remedy what the group says are public health, environmental, animal welfare and rural community problems created by the industrial food animal production system. A new analysis from the Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future finds that the Obama administration and Congress Read More …

“United States of America is being extracted through banking, trade and taxation!” – Dylan Ratigan

Mike Callicrate

“It’s not an opinion, it’s a mathematical fact, tens of trillions of dollars are being extracted from the United States of America.” – Dylan Ratigan Dylan Ratigan is mad as hell. Infuriated by government corruption and corporate communism, incensed by banksters shaking down taxpayers, and despairing of an ailing health care system, an age-old dependency on foreign oil, and a failing education system, Ratigan sees an America that has allowed itself to be swindled and robbed. In Greedy Read More …

The Future of American Farming

Jacek Popiel

American agriculture is the most efficient and productive on the planet. Between 2% and 4% of the population – depending whether one counts migrant workers or not – raises enough to keep us well fed, with plenty left for export. This achievement has a dark side. Not only are ranchers and farmers a small fraction of the American population, but the number is shrinking: the average farmer (or rancher) is 58 years old. The farming population is not Read More …

The Fertilizer Oligopoly: The Case for Global Antitrust Enforcement

Mike Callicrate

AAI Working Paper No. 13-05: by Author: C. Robert Taylor and Diana L. Moss Fertilizers are a critical input in the agricultural sector where industrial farming is heavily dependent on external inputs of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium or potash. A history of supra-competitive pricing by the few, large global producers of fertilizer inputs – coupled with characteristics that make the market conducive to anticompetitive coordination (i.e., collusion) – raise significant competitive concerns. This working paper qualitatively and quantitatively Read More …

Terminate NCBA as Checkoff Contractor

Mike Callicrate

Mr. Weldon Wynn, Chairman Cattlemen’s Beef Board 9000 E. Nichols Ave., Suite 215 Centennial, CO 80112 Dear Mr. Wynn, The Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) calls for the termination of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) as a contractor for the Beef Checkoff Program. The organization’s latest move demonstrates once again that it cannot be trusted with producer funds. NCBA is now a plaintiff in a lawsuit to block the implementation of mandatory country of origin labeling that Read More …

Striking Out the Beef Checkoff

Mike Callicrate

By Vaughn Meyer of Reva, SD As an appointee to the 106 member Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB) I often wonder if I/we are spending your beef checkoff dollars in the best interest of beef promotion. To begin this examination of our commitment to our fellow producers of investing your money wisely (all $40 million), let us review the Beef Board mission statement, “The Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion & Research Board is dedicated to improving producer profitability’ expanding consumer demand Read More …

OCM to plot long overdue market revival at convention

Mike Callicrate

PRESS RELEASE Organization for Competitive Markets P.O. Box 6486 Lincoln, NE 68506 www.competitivemarkets.com Contact: Mike Callicrate, OCM President 785-332-8128 callicrate@competitivemarkets.com July 18, 2013 Expect a somber tribute to lost markets, followed by invigorating plans for a rebirth, at the Organization for Competitive Markets’ annual convention coming up August 9th and 10th in Kansas City. “The free market we all like to talk about is a mirage. We pretend it’s there, but in reality our competitive markets have been Read More …