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Leveling the Playing Field for MN Family Farms

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Monday, November 29, 2010   

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. - Last week the public comment period ended on a proposed USDA rule - the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) rule - aimed at leveling the playing field for family farmers and ranchers. According to Adam Warthesen, federal farm policy organizer with the Land Stewardship Project, implementing the rule is in the best interest of farmers, rural communities and the nation's food system. It will help prevent corporate meatpacker and producer interests from overpowering family farms and consumer interests, he says.

"What we hear from farmers is that the status quo of what's happening in the livestock industry is not acceptable. We have fewer farmers, greater concentrations of animals on fewer farms and rural communities that are suffering."

The new rule would provide greater price transparency for livestock, greater market access and better enforcement. Meatpackers and corporate livestock producers strongly oppose the proposal, saying it goes against legal precedent. They lobbied Congress and the USDA, and succeeded in extending the original August comment deadline to November. The USDA is now expected to publish an interim final rule.

Warthesen anticipates more stalling tactics from corporate packers and producers.

"When they call for extensions and when they call for economic analysis and when they issue their own study, it isn't about clarifying the rule, it isn't about helping the USDA make it a better rule, it's about how do they kill it, how do they end it so it doesn't exist."

Warthesen says LSP staff and advocates are encouraged that the Obama administration moved the process forward, and are hopeful that the administration will keep the rule alive.

"We didn't see it under Bush 1, we didn't see it under Clinton, we didn't see it under Bush 2. It's finally come to the Obama administration. They were encouraged by Congress to put together these rules, but it's also taken courage for them to come out and push it forward."

Warthesen adds that the timing couldn't be more critical. Today there are less than 5,000 hog farms in the state, where 60 years ago there were more than 100,000, he says.

"It's come to a breaking point. If we don't see action on this, we're going to lose more and more livestock producers. That's not good for the land, that's not good for Minnesota and that's not good for our communities."

Information on the proposed rule and other public comments are available at www.regulations.gov; LSP comments on the GIPSA rule are at www.landstewardshipproject.org.




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