Cattle Market Reforms
I’m Bob Larson. Cattle market reform is getting a lot of attention on Capitol Hill, but ag leaders complain we need more answers from either beef packers or the Justice Department.
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says he’ll wait until the Justice Department completes a now almost two-year probe, before deciding if the ‘big four’ packers lied about price-fixing …
GRASSLEY … “I believe that they would have to answer that way, or they would be admitting colluding, and they’re under oath.”
Cargill, JBS, National Beef Packing, and Tyson CEOs blamed high prices on supply and demand issues during the pandemic, even though prices began to soar in 2015…
GRASSLEY … “They didn’t talk much about their massive profits over the last year, farmers may be losing money, they’re sometimes making a thousand dollars a head, and the high cost of beef at the supermarket.”
Grassley wants to know why the Justice Department is so slow in providing answers …
GRASSLEY … “What’s so secret about all this stuff? But we always do get the same answer on any investigation by the Department of Justice and by the FBI, that they don’t
comment on ongoing investigations. But they could at least tell us when are they going to get the investigation over.
Give us some timeline.”
Grassley expects action on his bill soon to mandate levels of negotiated pricing by region and create a USDA post to investigate producer complaints against packers.
