Duvall: Biggest problem facing agriculture is lack of labor
Congress must reform the guestworker program to ensure there are enough workers on the farm to produce America's food, said the president of the largest U.S. farm group on Sunday. (No paywall)
USDA and states to tackle anticompetitive practices
A new partnership between the USDA and 31 states will “help lower food costs for American families while also giving farmers and ranchers more and better options,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at the White House on Wednesday.
With a second beef plant, Walmart raises concerns about vertical integration in cattle markets
Last month Walmart announced plans to open a plant in Olathe, Kansas, that will turn large cuts of beef into meatcase-ready steaks, filets, and more for its Midwest stores. This $257 million investment is the latest in Walmart’s efforts to build its own Angus beef supply chain, which began in 2019 when it partnered with processors and a ranching company to open its first case-ready beef plant in Georgia and launch an in-house Angus brand across the Southeast.
As U.S. cattle herd shrinks, meatpackers ‘are scrambling’
Drought and high feed costs have driven ranchers to send cattle to slaughter instead of keeping them for breeding, Reuters reports, shrinking the U.S. beef herd to its smallest size since 1962. As a result, meatpackers are paying considerably more for the cows they turn into meat, which cuts into their profits.
USDA’s new food centers designed to boost smaller farms and food businesses
In a bid to strengthen local and regional food systems and help small and midsized farms and food businesses reach new markets and resources, the USDA is creating a dozen new regional food centers, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced Wednesday. (No paywall)
USDA report highlights harms of seed consolidation
A new report released earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds that seed industry consolidation and restrictive intellectual property regimes are stifling small, independent, and public seed breeding programs. No paywall
In the background for farm bill: How many farms and what size?
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack reached back to the Carter era in calling for a transformational 2023 farm bill that helps small and medium-size farmers earn more from the land rather than move to town. Secretary Bob Bergland "issued a warning to all of us about" the problem of too much consolidation in agriculture, said Vilsack.
U.S. and EU, agricultural giants with fewer and fewer farmers
For all their differences, the United States and the European Union share a common experience — the abrupt decline in farm numbers, said the agriculture ministers of the agricultural powerhouses. The transformation of the agriculture sector, more recent in Europe than in the United States, resulted in a relatively small number of large farms that produce the majority of the food and many small farms with little revenue from crops and livestock.
Fewer hog farms, but far more hogs per farm
In the space of a generation, U.S. hog production has transformed, even if the Midwest, with Iowa foremost, is still the leader, said a new USDA report. There were half as many hog farms in the country in 2017 as there were in 1997, and the largest farms, often specialized operations, raised 93 percent of the pigs.
Report: Iowa’s hyper-consolidated hog industry drives income inequality
The increasing dominance of large factory farms in Iowa means hog farmers earn $2 less per pound of pork than they did 40 years ago, when the state had many more smaller farms, according to a new report by the nonprofit advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
Packers: ‘We’re not to blame for high meat prices’
The chief executives of the nation’s four largest meatpacking companies said on Wednesday that they were not the cause of surging meat prices at the grocery store, which are up by 15 percent in a year. And they told a skeptical House Agriculture chairman David Scott there was no pact to drive up profits at the expense of consumers or limit the meat supply for Americans.
Meatpacking leaders to speak at House hearing on industry concentration
The chief executive officers of Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS, and National Beef — the four largest meatpackers in the country — will testify at a House Agriculture Committee hearing on consolidation in the meat industry, said chairman David Scott.
Why the surge of co-ops and other ag collectives during the pandemic could continue
The pandemic has given the idea of agricultural collectives a boost—in some instances, a gigantic boost. In 2020, when the coronavirus disrupted industrial food systems, causing widespread backlogs and shortages, local co-ops, farm collectives, food hubs, and other distribution projects found fresh relevance. Some food hubs reported revenue increases as high as 500 percent, according to a May 2021 report from the Wallace Center, a nonprofit that supports community food and farming solutions.(No paywall)
White House points inflation finger at meatpackers
Grocery prices are climbing at their fastest pace since 2008, with beef, pork and poultry leading the way — up nearly 13 percent since last November, said the government's new inflation report. The White House pinned the blame for surging meat prices on meatpackers "taking advantage of their market power to raise prices while increasing their own profit margins."
Mississippi chicken farmers protest proposed pay cut they say is tied to merger
When Sanderson Farms announced a base pay cut for its growers throughout Mississippi in early August, farmers claimed it was an effort to undercut wages in the wake of a merger between Sanderson and Wayne Farms, another major producer in the state, as Marcia Brown reports in FERN's latest story, produced with The Capitol Forum. (No paywall)
USDA puts into action its pledge to expand meat industry capacity
Three months ago, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the USDA would commit $500 million to expand meat and poultry processing capacity and create a more competitive livestock market. "I believe it is going to leverage literally billions of dollars in investment from investors and local governments," said Vilsack at a meat locker plant in Council Bluffs, Iowa.
‘Fairness for Farmers’ campaign targets market power of big companies
Buoyed by a Biden administration pledge to vigorously police agricultural mergers, the National Farmers Union launched the nationwide "Fairness for Farmers" campaign on Wednesday to restore competition in the marketplace. "This endeavor has clear goals: to curtail consolidation in agriculture and bust the monopolies, which negatively impact farmers, ranchers, and consumers," said NFU president Rod Larew.
Vilsack: Stronger rules on the way for fair play in livestock marketing
The USDA will propose three rules to give cattle, hog and poultry producers more leverage in dealing with meat processors in an increasingly concentrated industry, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The initiatives would make it easier for a producer to prove unfair treatment by a processor and would write a new regulation on use of so-called tournament systems by processors to determine pay for poultry farmers.
Senate bill calls for half of slaughter cattle to be sold on cash market
Large meatpackers would be required to buy 50 percent of their cattle for slaughter each week on the open market under legislation filed by nine senators. It was the second bill this month aimed at greater transparency in cattle prices.