R-CALF Applauds USDA Domestic Food Purchase Program Changes

The USDA has made an important step in supporting the domestic cattle industry with an announced revamp of their food purchasing program. According to R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America CEO, Bill Bullard.

“We've been asking them for two decades to use taxpayer money in order to help support our domestic supply chain for beef. And the way they could do that was for all the federal purchases by the US Department of Agriculture, for example, like our school lunch program, and other nutrition assistance programs, as well as for all Defense Department's spending, if they would purchase beef that was exclusively produced to the United States of America, it would be an anchor customer, so to speak for our US cattle industry, and it would help to promote and bolster and strengthen our domestic supply chain for cattle. And so we're very pleased and mid-November when USDA announced that all of the purchases to the Agricultural Marketing Service of USDA will be meat from animals that had been born, raised and slaughtered in the United States exclusively American animals.”

Bullard adds that USDA purchases about $500 million of beef each year and he says this will support country-of-origin labeling.

“And the other thing it does is it sends a signal to Congress that the born raised and slaughtered standard is the appropriate standard or country of origin labels.”

R-calf is in hopes that the USDA revamped food purchasing program changes go into effect immediately.