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.
Funeral services will be held August 9th, 2013, in Kansas City, MO. It is with deepest regrets we announce that the market, age 92, passed away after a long illness. This was a terrible loss to livelihoods, rural communities and consumer choice. Survivors include a few farmers and ranchers, once symbols of free enterprise and economic freedom, who are now sharecroppers and serfs under the heel of concentrated and abusive economic power. The market was reborn in 1921 Read More …
By Mike Callicrate & Fred Stokes Eating is one thing we all have in common. And, to millions of us, what we eat, how it’s produced, and where it comes from is important. OCM has worked for the last fourteen years to restore competition in the agricultural marketplace. We believe family farmers and ranchers make the best stewards of our land and livestock, and are the most reliable and trustworthy sources of high quality, healthy and safe food. Read More …
The worries about the power of Wall Street have their roots in rural America. More than 120 years ago, rural Grangers and Populists were warning about concentrations of business power. Maybe it’s time we listened to our rural forebears. By C. Robert Taylor When Nebraska farmers in the 1880s saw that their economic future was being controlled by large businesses, they didn’t occupy Wall Street. They built a new political party. Here is a picture of the Nebraska Read More …
For Immediate Release October 19, 2012 Mad Cow, E. coli and abusive market power broker the deal The world witnessed as Cargill and Tyson plundered the Canadian cattle and beef industries after the 2003 Mad Cow debacle. By 2008, there was little meat left on the industries’ bones, so Tyson sold to Nilsson Brothers Inc., an Alberta based cattle dealer, auction house operator, and owner of a 10,000 head per week Calgary meat plant, making Nilsson Canada’s largest Read More …
Colorado Congressional District 5 covers El Paso County, site of Colorado Springs, the state’s second largest city, as well as five “rural” counties to the south and west. It is considered solidly Republican. GOP Representative Doug Lamborn, now running for a fourth term in the House, is nevertheless being challenged by Dave Anderson, a businessman running on an independent platform. Lamborn is a local attorney who served in the Colorado Senate before going to Washington, where he is Read More …
“Voices Rising from the Land” “Addressing the Threats to Independent Family Agriculture.” August 10, 2012 – 14th Annual OCM Food and Agriculture Conference, Kansas City, MO View Press Conference Video Welcome, Introductions, Opening Remarks Fred Stokes, OCM President PANEL – SETBACKS AND DISAPPOINTMENTS (From Left to Right) Fred Stokes, J. Dudley Butler, Bob Taylor and Bill Bullard J. Dudley Butler – GIPSA Rule Butler has recently returned to the practice of law after spending almost three years as Read More …
I am J. Dudley Butler. I am an independent family farmer, agricultural lawyer and former Admin. of the Grain Inspection Packer and Stockyard Administration at USDA. I’ve experienced first-hand the vicious, slanderous personal attacks by the meat packers, their chosen media minions, and the puppets like the leaders at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. These types of lies must stop. The public deserves better. The lone plaintiff, Mike Callicrate, in the lawsuit filed against USDA seeks to save Read More …
September 4, 2012 By Mike Callicrate With much appreciation for the courageous leadership of our past president, Fred Stokes, I write my first message as OCM’s president. I recently asked Fred, “Is OCM irrelevant? How can there be competitive markets without competitors?” In his important and must-read book, Cornered, author Barry C. Lynn describes how every major industry is controlled by a few companies – cartels, shared monopolies and outright monopolies. Always considered one of the greatest threats Read More …