Federal agriculture officials are poised to enact new disclosure requirements for the poultry industry to allow poultry farmers to increase their potential profits.
The adjustments are aimed at addressing some long-standing court cases of farmers being hired through giant corporations to raise chickens for meat, the U. S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday.
More than anything, corporations are meat processors who pay farmers to raise their chickens. Companies supply the chicks, feed, and medicines, and the farmers provide the comforts and hard labor needed to raise them until the birds are ready to be slaughtered.
Farmers are compensated based on how successfully they produce meat compared to other farmers hired through corporations. Many farmers have been complaining to the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The U. S. government has been saying that corporations have too much influence over deals and too little accountability. branch officials said.
This can lead to farmers making less profit than expected while also going into debt to build or improve their facilities.
“There’s never been a better time for poultry farmers to have strong transparency, early on and on an ongoing basis, to clean the broiler market of deceptive practices,” said Andy Green, USDA’s senior advisor for fair and competitive markets.
The branch on Wednesday announced the first in a series of developments stemming from President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order aimed at expanding the festival in the country’s economy.
The new regulations require giant live bird investors to disclose to farmers the earnings of their contract farmers. Traders also describe how they manage herd-like losses to diseases and herbaceous disasters, food shortages, and farmers’ court cases over feed quality.
The new ones oblige concessionaires to guarantee a minimum number of herd accommodations with farmers according to the year and to specify the duration of those herds. Broilers mature in about two months.
Traders who slaughter less than 2 million pounds of broilers per week or 104 million pounds per year are exempt.
“It’s fair to say that for many, many years, poultry farmers have been concerned about whether or not the formula of contracts and tournaments they participate in provides a point of fairness and transparency,” the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture said. Vilsack said at a news conference Wednesday.
He said the new regulations are imposed under the Packers and Cattle Corrals Act of 1921, which aims to protect farmers from unfair and monopolistic practices. They are expected to come into force at the end of January.
The consolidation of the meat processing industry has come under renewed scrutiny due to the coronavirus pandemic, when giant processing facilities were forced to temporarily close and some farmers had nowhere to sell their animals. Federal officials said a handful of giant corporations control about 85% of beef. 70% of red meat and more than 50% of chicken.
This article first appeared on the Iowa Capital Dispatch, a sister site to the Nebraska Examiner on the States Newsroom network.
by Jared Strong, Nebraska Examiner November 8, 2023
Federal agriculture officials are poised to enact new disclosure requirements for the poultry industry to allow poultry farmers to increase their potential profits.
The adjustments are aimed at addressing some long-standing court cases of farmers being hired through giant corporations to raise chickens for meat, the U. S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday.
More than anything, corporations are meat processors who pay farmers to raise their chickens. Companies supply the chicks, feed, and medicines, and the farmers provide the comforts and hard labor needed to raise them until the birds are ready to be slaughtered.
Farmers are compensated based on how successfully they produce meat compared to other farmers hired through corporations. Many farmers have been complaining to the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The U. S. government has been saying that corporations have too much influence over deals and too little accountability. branch officials said.
This can lead to farmers making less profit than expected while also going into debt to build or improve their facilities.
“There’s never been a better time for poultry farmers to have strong transparency, early on and on an ongoing basis, to clean the broiler market of deceptive practices,” said Andy Green, USDA’s senior advisor for fair and competitive markets.
The branch on Wednesday announced the first in a series of developments stemming from President Joe Biden’s 2021 executive order aimed at expanding the festival in the country’s economy.
The new regulations require giant live bird investors to disclose to farmers the earnings of their contract farmers. Traders also describe how they manage herd-like losses to diseases and herbaceous disasters, food shortages, and farmers’ court cases over feed quality.
The new ones oblige concessionaires to guarantee a minimum number of herd accommodations with farmers according to the year and to specify the duration of those herds. Broilers mature in about two months.
Traders who slaughter less than 2 million pounds of broilers per week or 104 million pounds per year are exempt.
“It’s fair to say that for many, many years, poultry farmers have been concerned about whether or not the formula of contracts and tournaments they participate in provides a point of fairness and transparency,” the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture said. Vilsack said at a news conference Wednesday.
He said the new regulations are imposed under the Packers and Cattle Corrals Act of 1921, which aims to protect farmers from unfair and monopolistic practices. They are expected to come into force at the end of January.
The consolidation of the meat processing industry has come under renewed scrutiny due to the coronavirus pandemic, when giant processing facilities were forced to temporarily close and some farmers had nowhere to sell their animals. Federal officials said a handful of giant corporations control about 85% of beef. 70% of red meat and more than 50% of chicken.
This article first appeared on the Iowa Capital Dispatch, a sister site to the Nebraska Examiner on the States Newsroom network.
Nebraska Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a network of grant-backed news bureaus and a coalition of donors as a 501c public charity(3). Nebraska Examiner maintains its editorial independence. Please contact Editor Cate Folsom if you have any questions: info@nebraskaexaminer. com. Follow the Nebraska Examiner on Facebook and Twitter.
Senior reporter Jared Strong has written about Iowans and the vital issues affecting them for more than 15 years, in the past for the Carroll Times Herald and the Des Moines Register. His investigative paintings exposing police misconduct have earned him several national and national awards. He is a longtime trustee of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, which fights for archives transparency and open government. He has lived in Iowa his entire life and has most commonly lived in rural spaces in the western component of the state.
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