Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley has reintroduced legislation to ban packer ownership of livestock. 

Over the last several decades large packing companies in the poultry and pork industries have moved to concentrate and vertically integrate. The beef industry is also showing similar signs of consolidation. According to USDA, the amount of cattle traded on the cash market declined from 52% in 2005 to 21% in 2015. This trend illustrates the outsized power of packers in the marketplace.

“An effective and efficient marketplace is one where packers that control all harvest capacity do not also own a majority of the animals to be processed,” said Grassley, a Republican. “We need a competitive marketplace in the livestock industry that delivers a fair market price to farmers. Eliminating packer ownership of livestock would be a good first step in accomplishing that goal.”          

Independent producers are seeing fewer choices of who to buy from and who to sell to. More and more family farmers are feeling the pressure and impact of concentration in agriculture. This bill aims to ensure that family farmers and independent producers receive fair prices for their efforts.           

Grassley’s bill contains four exceptions to the ban for:

Grassley has introduced similar versions of the packer ban in previous Congresses. 

Source: Sen. Charles Grassley