The USDA’s proposal to withdraw three finalized Packers and Stockyards rules directly contradicts its claims of opposing monopoly power. Without these protections, countless contract growers will be left vulnerable to powerful meatpacking and poultry monopolies.
RAFI has worked for decades with contract poultry growers to achieve reforms in this industry. Withdrawing these reforms will devastate not just the sector but also the growers who were courageous enough to risk their livelihoods by speaking out for change.
Without these rules, corporate integrators can continue to leverage their outsized influence to create unfair conditions with no accountability to the growers they contract.
The proposal to rescind these rules — despite evidence showing that the entire poultry-growing system improves when integrators are held accountable — suggests that the USDA does not hold growers’ interests at heart and is instead siding with large corporate meatpackers and poultry integrators. The protection of these rules is crucial in a time when our food supply chain is more vulnerable than ever.
For more background, please read Lisa Held’s Civil Eats story.