7-13 IAN Wyatt on GIPSA

The proposed rule, commonly referred to as the “GIPSA rule,” is aimed at breaking up what supporters say is meatpacker market power and providing independent cattle producers more competitive prices for their animals.

 Some say the GIPSA rule prevents meatpackers from giving secret, sweetheart deals to their corporate livestock suppliers while refusing to pay family farmers and ranchers so much as a fair price for their livestock.

 Opponents, including large meatpacking companies, argue the rule eliminates marketing arrangements with cattle producers that have resulted in higher-quality beef products and increased demand for them. Here is what Executive Director of the Idaho Cattlemen’s Association, Wyatt Prescott has to say: “the USDA said we are going to do this economic analysis and we are going to make some new rules but then you are going to have to live by them. So we have been pressuring Sec. Vilsack to say if you get these new rules put together we want to see people comment on them before you make cattle producers adhere to them, before you force it down their throat. Essentially the administration said no way, we are not going to do that, we are going to make the new rules and you are going to have to live by them. So Congress on the house side said if they are going to do that we are not going to fund the implementation of these proposed new rules, so when the House, on the House floor, somebody brought an amendment to basically restore that funding,  that de-funding that Congress did and they brought this amendment up to restore that funding and we defeated that amendment on the house side.