Category: Media Coverage

The Atlantic By Annie Lowrey Imagine the farm that raised the chicken that produced the meat that sits in your sandwich: a few workers, thousands of birds, tens of thousands of pounds of white and dark meat, work that starts before dawn and ends after dusk, uncertain revenue, slim profits. There are thousands of these small farms in the United States, and they benefit from millions of dollars of taxpayer support each year. Chicken is America’s favorite protein, after all. Family Read More …

Brownfield Ag News By Larry Lee The leader of the Organization for Competitive Markets tells Brownfield they are getting more support from other groups for a bill that would block any future agribusiness mergers and acquisitions.  Joe Maxwell tells Brownfield, “It’s time to put a stop, hit the pause button on these mega-mergers until the Congress can take a look and see what we need to do in this country to give a fair opportunity for family farmers.” Maxwell says Read More …

The New Food Economy By Sam Bloch n Wednesday, Cory Booker, the Democratic Senator from New Jersey, introduced a bill that would impose a temporary moratorium on mergers and acquisitions between large farm, food, and grocery companies, and establish a commission to strengthen antitrust enforcement in the agribusiness industry. The bill, modeled after legislation introduced by the late “prairie populist” Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota in 1999, would be effective for 18 months, or until more comprehensive legislation is passed to Read More …

Forbes By Nicole Rasul American shoppers face yet another dilemma in the grocery store aisle. According to a petition submitted to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) by the Organization for Competitive Markets and the American Grassfed Association, not all meat labeled “Product of U.S.A.” is actually from animals raised within U.S. borders. It is “deceptive and misleading,” says the advocacy organizations in the document. They state that due to an ambiguity in the language Read More …

Tri-State Livestock News By Amanda Radke When consumers shop the meat case, they have a variety of labels to choose from such as natural, organic, antibiotic-free, grassfed, Certified Angus Beef and Certified Hereford Beef, just to name a few. While beef and pork muscle cuts are no longer under the list of commodities covered by the country-of-origin-labeling (COOL) regulation (as of February 2016), many products, such as grassfed beef, are still labeled as a “Product of U.S.A.” However, Read More …

Politico’s Morning Ag By Sabrina Rodriguez USDA defied the will of Congress when it rolled back two rules aimed at balancing the power between meatpacking companies and contract growers –– more widely known as the GIPSA rules, according to the latest brief filed in a lawsuit challenging Perdue’s decision to withdraw the rules last year. The lawsuit, brought by legal nonprofit Democracy Forward on behalf of the Organization for Competitive Markets, also argues that the department failed to provide a Read More …

The New Food Economy By Joe Fassler Last month, in a petition formally filed with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), two advocacy groups made a stunning claim: Your American grass-fed beef might actually come from overseas, even if it’s labeled “Product of U.S.A.” Joe Fassler will be hosting a Q&A about meat labeling on Thursday, July 19 at 1 p.m., EST. Join us by using the hashtag #CarnivoresDilemma. See you there. Those two groups—the American Grassfed Association (AGA), which offers the Read More …