Source: WNAX Radio Date Published: January 19, 2020 The Organization for Competitive Markets is studying the Justice Department’s investigation of Dairy Farmers of America and their potential deal to acquire the bankrupted Dean Foods. OCM Policy and Research Director Ben Gotschall says they’re very concerned about increasing concentration in the dairy industry. He says prior to Dean Foods filing for bankruptcy there was already market concentration and following the restructuring it also led to the loss of several Read More …
Tag: antitrust
Advocates Take to Social Media to #BreakUpBigAg
Between Monday, June 10th and Friday, June 14th the Organization for Competitive Markets led a social media campaign called #BreakUpBigAg to support the Agribusiness Merger Moratorium Act. Organizations and individual advocates published their pictures along with statements in support of the moratorium on Facebook and Twitter. In their pictures, participants were holding posters with facts about consolidation in our farm and food systems. These facts included: “1950s: farmers received 50% of the food dollar. Today: farmers receive 14.8% of Read More …
GIPSA is Dead; the Fight for Producer Protections Continues
In a move designed to take a thorn out of the side of the world’s largest meatpackers, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Sonny Perdue put the final nail in the coffin of the Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) by formalizing the elimination of the standalone agency and transferring its delegation to the historically big agribusiness-friendly Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS). Among its duties, the now defunct GIPSA agency was responsible for enforcement of antitrust law in Read More …
Don’t Throw the Baby out with the Bathwater: Not All Regulations Are Bad
Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) is celebrating its 20th birthday this year. Since its inception, OCM’s mission statement has included the following statement, “True competition reduces the need for economic regulation. Our mission, and our duty, is to define and advocate the proper role of government in the agricultural economy as a regulator and enforcer of rules necessary for markets that are fair, honest, accessible and competitive for all citizens.” OCM has always understood that to secure our Read More …
Occupy Langdon: We Are Less Than One Percent
by Richard Oswald The Occupy Wall Street Movement has been called “a potent political and cultural conversation”. On the other hand Occupy movements in cities like Washington DC have been called over reported and under attended. That is definitely not the case here because Occupy Langdon has been completely off the radar screen, totally undiscussed, and one hundred percent unreported. Until now. I’m breaking this thing wide open. Here around Langdon and all across the USA, less than 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 …
U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance;
Thomas F. “Fred” Stokes Executive Director Seeking to help U. S. farmers and ranchers or bent on selling the industrial model to a skeptical public? When I first saw the list of the founding members of the new U. S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance, all sorts of alarm bells went off. The list includes such groups as; American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), American Soybean Association (ASA), Cattlemen’s Beef Board(CBB), Federation of State Beef Councils (FSBC), National Cattlemen’s Beef Read More …
US Farmers and Rancher Alliance (USFRA): The Veeder Pool of Public Policy
by Randy Stevenson, President The value of history is the lessons learned from it. In looking at the activities of beef industry today, one of the best history lesson comes from certain events around the turn of the last century. The Sherman Antitrust Act had been passed in 1890. In the following decade it was mostly ignored by the Executive Branch of the federal government. In about 1885, prior to the passage of the Sherman Act, a pool Read More …