Grassley, Tester Urge Fellow Senators to Stand Up for Family Farmers & Ranchers in FY24 Appropriations

CHICKASAW COUNTY, IOWA – U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.), both farmers and members of the Senate Agriculture Committee, today sent a letter to colleagues urging them to oppose efforts to weaken the Packers and Stockyards Act in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Agriculture Appropriations bill. Grassley and Tester are seeking to protect consumers and foster market opportunities for family farmers and ranchers, warning that diluting anticompetitive enforcement tools will drive further consolidation in the ag industry.

“Making ends meet raising livestock is a tough business under fair circumstances. It can be downright impossible when the deck is stacked against you by multi-national meat packers that have a concerning pattern of running roughshod over our nation’s anti-trust laws,” the senators wrote. “Right now in the United States, four companies control over 80 percent of domestic Beef Processing, 60 percent of domestic hog processing, and 50 percent of domestic poultry processing. This level of concentration is a bad deal for consumers and a bad deal for family farmers and ranchers.”

Congress first enacted the Packers and Stockyards Act in 1921 to hold large meatpackers accountable to consumers and producers. In the 2008 Farm Bill, Congress directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to more forcefully implement the law’s antitrust provisions. But those enforcement tools as they stand fail to adequately level the playing field for small scale producers. Current efforts by the nation’s largest meatpackers to discourage market competition could prove detrimental to America’s family farmers and ranchers.

Read the senators’ full “Dear Colleague” letter HERE. 

Background: 

To combat corporate consolidation in U.S. agriculture, Grassley and Tester have:

• Introduced the Meatpacking Special Investigator Act to appoint a USDA special investigator with subpoena power to enforce anti-trust laws; 
• Led the China Trade Cheating Restitution Act to repay American producers who have been impacted by China’s evasion of anti-dumping duties; and
• Joined bipartisan, bicameral colleagues to urge a Justice Department investigation into potential antitrust law violations in the meatpacking industry amid skyrocketing corporate profits. 

Grassley is a persistent voice for independent cattle producers. The Senate Agriculture Committee last Congress advanced another bill he’s championed, the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act, to strengthen pricing mechanisms and create a public contract library. That legislation builds on Grassley’s longstanding work to improve cattle market fairness, which dates back to his Transparency for Independent Livestock Producers Act in 2002 and the Tyson-IBP merger in 2001.

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