The last nine months have been breathtaking for the country’s chicken farmers.
Poultry producers have been tricked, or one might say plucked, by chicken companies for decades. Since the “Chicken of Tomorrow” contest in 1948, the poultry industry has found ways to increase its profitability with the help of many individual farmers.
In July 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order highlighting the injustices:
“Consolidation in agriculture is making it too difficult for small family farms to survive. Farmers are squeezed between concentrated market power in the agricultural inputs – seed, fertilizer, feed and equipment suppliers – and concentrated market power in the distribution channels for agricultural products. As a result, farmers’ share of the value of their agricultural products has declined, and poultry farmers, hog farmers, cattle farmers and other agricultural workers are struggling to maintain their autonomy and achieve sustainable yields.”
But it’s one thing to point out the problems and quite another to fix them. What’s notable is the way the Biden administration is trying to create a level playing field between chicken farmers and their large-scale poultry farmers.
So far, the USDA has proposed not one, not two, but three separate regulations in the Federal Register that directly target the nation’s chicken companies.
Last November, the U.S. Department of Agriculture passed a regulation amending the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921, requiring poultry operators to disclose information about their tournament systems to chicken producers, including rankings that determine compensation payouts. In short, the regulation requires poultry companies to be more transparent about the specific investments contract poultry producers may need to make to be successful.
And then earlier this year, USDA proposed the Poultry Producer Payment Systems and Capital Improvements Rule. The rule would end the practice of the poultry industry making deductions from a poultry producer’s base pay for performance that the poultry companies deem inadequate. While the rule would still allow the poultry industries to pay performance bonuses, those payments cannot be made by withholding funds from producers who finish last in a competition.
The rule would also require Big Poultry to document exactly how it makes fair comparisons between individual breeders. The comment period for the rule ended August 9.
And just recently, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its proposal for a fair and competitive livestock and poultry market regulation. The regulation would amend the Packers and Stockyards Act by explicitly defining unfair practices as “conduct that harms market participants and conduct that harms markets.” The regulation would make it much easier for individual chicken farmers to sue large poultry companies without first having to prove “competitive harm.”
Public comment on the rule ends later this month.
It cannot be overstated how focused the Biden administration has been on updating the Packers and Stockyards Act in the name of competition and equality. But with Inauguration Day less than five months away, the USDA must move unusually quickly to release the final rules. And it goes without saying that the November election will say a lot about what happens after Inauguration Day.
I am convinced that if Donald Trump is re-elected president, there will be efforts to undo the progress the Biden administration has made in helping chicken farmers. After all, the first Trump administration withdrew an interim final rule from the Obama administration that would have protected livestock farmers from exploitation.
All of this raises the question: What is presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’s position on agricultural issues in general, and this frontal attack on the poultry industry in particular? To date, agricultural issues have not been Harris’ area of expertise.
Harris’s support from the United Farm Workers is an example, but not a decisive argument, for her attitude toward the agricultural industry. The UFW sees its mission as advocating for “legislative and regulatory reforms for farmworkers, covering issues such as overtime, heat protection, other worker protections, and pesticides.” In other words, protecting the little guy. Would Harris feel the same way?
Perhaps more telling would be for Harris to weigh in on California Proposition 12, a law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court that sets production standards for meat companies seeking to sell pork within the Golden State’s borders. Since Prop 12 became law, the agricultural industry has been desperately trying to overturn the law, either through further litigation or through Congress. The Biden administration has supported the repeal of Prop 12. Would Harris choose a different tactic and perhaps demand that Prop 12 and similar laws remain in place?
Nobody really knows. It’s safe to assume that the big agribusinesses will make it their mission over the next few months to understand where Harris stands on all things agriculture. But I’m not sure the industry will have anything like a complete picture of Harris on agriculture before the November election. There’s not much of a track record and little time to fill in the gaps.
This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
