{"id":69450,"date":"2016-06-04T16:40:11","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T20:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=69450"},"modified":"2016-06-04T11:03:23","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T15:03:23","slug":"grassley-re-introduced-bill-to-ban-packers-from-owning-livestock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=69450","title":{"rendered":"Grassley Re-introduced Bill to Ban Packers from Owning Livestock"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?attachment_id=69452\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-69452\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-69452\" src=\"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/image2-1-294x300.jpg\" alt=\"image2\" width=\"294\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/image2-1-294x300.jpg 294w, https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/image2-1-147x150.jpg 147w, https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/image2-1.jpg 882w, https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/image2-1-400x408.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 294px) 100vw, 294px\" \/><\/a>By John Crabtree,\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:johnc@cfra.org\" target=\"_blank\">johnc@cfra.org<\/a>, Center for Rural Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n<div>Recently Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), reintroduced legislation &#8211; S. 2911 &#8211; that would make it unlawful for a meatpacking company to own, feed, or control livestock intended for slaughter.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">According to the National Farmers Union, livestock ownership among a few multinational firms restricts competition, puts farmers and ranchers on an uneven playing field, and increases the chances of market price manipulation. Both the National Farmers Union and the Center for Rural Affairs have long supported passage of legislation to ban packer ownership of livestock and other related livestock market reforms.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">As I\u2019ve said before, the meatpacking industry always responds to reform legislation or any discussion of reforming livestock markets the same way. They want to control the marketplace; they don\u2019t care about how farmers and ranchers are treated; and they don\u2019t want anyone holding them accountable or forcing them to operate in a fair, equitable, competitive marketplace.<\/div>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Barry Carpenter, President and CEO of the North American Meat Institute, claims that packers must own and feed their own cattle to maintain an effective marketplace. Bill Bullard, CEO of the ranchers\u2019 organization R-CALF USA, calls those claims baseless, deceptive and self-serving.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">I\u2019m with Bill.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">The packers and their sycophants at the National Pork Producers Council can whine all they want. Competitive markets are the foundation of America\u2019s economy. Family farmers and ranchers asking for a level playing field where farmers and ranchers, not the packers, own the livestock, is a request that is not only eminently reasonable, but long overdue.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By John Crabtree,\u00a0johnc@cfra.org, Center for Rural Affairs Recently Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), reintroduced legislation &#8211; S. 2911 &#8211; that would make it unlawful for a meatpacking company to own, feed, or control livestock intended for slaughter. According to the National Farmers Union, livestock ownership among a few multinational firms restricts competition, puts farmers and ranchers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69451,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23679,23811,23808,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agfarming","category-national","category-opinion","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}