Many lawmakers, including Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, have advocated for upgrades to the Packers & Stockyards Act. This bill is over a hundred years old and currently needs an upgrade for modern times. While it has been a source of geographical contention for northern and southern beef producers, it is a different story for the producers of pork and poultry products.
The USDA has recently proposed some changes to the law, that would at least bring upgrades to poultry producers. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack talks about the issues which are being addressed in these proposals. Most of it comes down to the need for transparency in the marketplace.
Vilsack says there are farmers out there who aren’t even receiving base pay for their products. Vilsack says that producers need a fundamental level of fairness.
On the beef side, there are still roadblocks to transparency changes when it comes to price discovery. The way the programs stand, southern producers can milk the system and get higher profits than their northern counterparts. Northern producers want a level playing field for their products, but their southern counterparts do not want to give up their advantage, or manipulation, of the marketplace.
