USDA Being Sued By Family Farmers

For decades, federal laws protected family farmers from monopoly power in the food industry. In October 2017, the U.S. Department of Agriculture withdrew critical protections intended to shield family farmers and ranchers from abusive practices by big agribusiness corporations. In doing so, the Trump administration has thrown America’s farmers and ranchers to the wolves, telling them their family businesses don’t matter.

Farmer Fair Practices Rules

Since 1980, 90% of U.S. hog farmers and 41% of U.S. cattle producers have gone out of business, and over one million U.S. farmers have been driven off the land. 71% of America’s poultry farmers now live below the federal poverty level. A huge contributor is the fact that our agribusiness anti-monopoly law, called the Packers & Stockyards Act, is not being enforced, and farmers are not protected from predatory and retaliatory practices by the largest livestock and poultry processing companies.

The Farmer Fair Practices Rules, also known as the GIPSA rules, would have stopped this injustice by ensuring our anti-monopoly law is enforced, but the Trump administration withdrew these protections. More than 80 farm organizations, representing hundreds of thousands of farmers, called on the president to reverse this decision, but we were ignored. With the help of Democracy Forward Foundation, we are suing the Trump administration for illegally rolling back the Farmer Fair Practices Rules…..read the rest here.