Today, the United States Department of Agriculture released a proposed rule that would provide some basic transparency to the abusive contract poultry growing system. These are useful steps that would shine some light on a system that is blatantly one-sided, favoring corporations over growers.
However, simply increasing transparency isn’t enough. USDA should quickly finalize this rule, and keep going to immediately strengthen and enforce rules to break up monopolistic control of our livestock markets, including real reforms to help Missouri cattle producers stay in business, make a living and pass their farms to the next generation, such as spot market reforms and making Country of Origin Labeling mandatory.
