Farm and Food File for the week beginning Sunday, Aug. 26, 2012 by Alan Guebert Somewhere along the line it became acceptable to bend and break the record of public figures and firms without any consequence whatsoever. Shortly thereafter distortion and deception replaced discussion and debate and yelling and lying replaced compromise and progress. And that’s just in agriculture; in politics it’s even worse. The latest farm and food fight centers on the legal battle that pits the Read More …
Tag: USDA
OCM 2012: Callicrate vs. USDA: Lawsuit claims beef checkoff paying for lobbying
Daniel D. Owen – Polsinelli Shughart PC August 10, 2012 | Filing Date for Complaint for Permanent Injunction MICHAEL P. CALLICRATE, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE (PDF) Mike Callicrate is the named plaintiff in the lawsuit filed against the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service, Cattlemen’s Beef Board (CBB) and the CBB’s Beef Promotion Operating Committee. Callicrate is the owner of a meat packing facility and retail market called Ranch Direct Foods in Colorado Springs, Read More …
USDA’s unused case to push its own rule
By Alan Guebert In a striking, two-and-a-half page analysis that ran counter to department leanings, the chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture strongly objected to the department’s use of two outside studies that justified the massive retooling—essentially gutting—of the 2010 update of Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) rules to ensure fairness in livestock and poultry markets. The memo was one needle in a nearly 1,700-page haystack USDA forked over in reply to Freedom of Read More …
GRAVY
By Richard Oswald Simple things–like the first meal of the day–are always best. Bacon and eggs, pancakes and sausage, biscuits, or plain old grits, you just can’t beat a country breakfast. When it gets right down to it, the flavor of the whole day is topped off with one thing; Good or bad, for better or worse, it’s all about gravy. A few years ago, hotels started offering customers breakfast at free buffets. First it was cereal, yogurt, Read More …
For Meat Industry, Anti-trust Efforts in Corporate Control Collapse
by David Andrews In 2008 the Federal Farm Bill instructed the Department of Agriculture to write rules for competition in the meat industry. This directive was to complete the details lacking in the 80-plus-year-old legislation on competition in the meat industry from the Theodore Roosevelt era. That legislation was to be enhanced with detailed directions on contracts, anti-trust policies and mandates requiring greater justice in meat production, processing and distribution. The rules were to be developed by a Read More …
Another Market Reformer Quits
Thomas F. “Fred” Stokes President On January 26th, J. Dudley Butler resigned his position as the livestock industry’s top cop. It was a sad day for independent livestock producers and poultry growers. There was lots of excitement and enthusiasm as the Obama Administration’s Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) forged an historic joint effort to deal with the long-neglected concentration and market power abuse in agriculture. But after some three years and five workshops which Read More …
Ranchers Must Keep Pushing, Ex-GIPSA Chief Says
Updated: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 11:42 AM By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Ranchers risk losing their independence unless they keep pressing for stronger oversight of meat packers, according to a former USDA official who recently resigned after losing a battle over livestock industry reforms. Cattle producers are subject to the same forces as the packer-dominated hog and chicken industries, said Dudley Butler, who left his post as chief of the agency’s Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration in Read More …
Letter from Langdon: Shhhh Farm Bill
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 …