American Military News by Gavin Off - The Charlotte Observer March 06, 2024
For more than a decade, poultry farmers across the U.S. fought for financial protections from the big agriculture companies that they not only rely on but sometimes fear.
Less than a month after those protections went into effect, some members of Congress and agricultural trade groups are pushing to take them away.
They support inserting language into the U.S. House appropriations bill that would prevent the USDA from funding the Transparency in Poultry Grower Contracting Tournaments rule, said Aaron Johnson, policy co-director for the Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA.
The protections, implemented independently by the USDA this year, require that poultry companies be more transparent and less deceptive towards the people who raise their birds, said Johnson, whose North Carolina-based group advocates for farmers.
“It says, ‘USDA, we’re giving you money, but you can’t spend a single penny of that money on the Packers and Stockyards Act rule,” said Johnson of the text added to the appropriations bill. “They’re basically defunding the process.”
In a letter to congressional leaders, more than 50 poultry and livestock industry groups across the U.S. said the act’s recent additions will hurt the ranchers and farmers they represent.
The reversal could come as soon as this week, when Congress is scheduled to vote on an agriculture appropriations bill. A draft of the bill includes language that would declaw federal rules prohibiting poultry companies from deceiving farmers, said Johnson, who has reviewed the bill.
“These rules are so basement-level basic,” Johnson said. “Transparency. Not being able to deceive people or retaliate against people. How do we expect a marketplace to work with any kind of integrity or fairness without being able to enforce these basic expectations?”
More:
https://americanmilitarynews.com/2024/03/new-rule-brought-protections-to-poultry-farmers-congress-may-gut-them/
