U.S. Cattlemen’s Association commends agency for its efforts investigating livestock market competition.

USDA announced a series of steps this week aimed at increasing market competition and lowering food prices. Those steps include establishing a framework for seed competition, providing access to a new retail report and issuing an executive order to address issues in livestock markets.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack says the announcements are part of a broader effort of the Biden-Harris administration to help farmers, small businesses and rural communities “get a fair shake.”

“Our work on competition is about opening up new markets for farmers and delivering fairer, more competitive choices,” Vilsack says. “Today’s actions will help to deliver on more choice and lower costs for seeds used by farmers, more choice and lower food costs for consumers, and a fairer marketplace for ranchers.”

The new seed competition framework is a three-pronged strategy to promote research access to germplasm. It identifies opportunities for better defining plan-related disclosures for seeds. The framework also provides additional guidance for USDA researchers around observational uses of protected germplasm in the context of patent laws. Additionally,, USDA is encouraging sharing research and plant breeding of germplasm developed by federal funding.

USDA also release an interim report titled “Competition and Fair Practices in Meat Merchandising.” It uses beef markets as a case study to better understand access to retail dynamics for producers and processors.

The report notes trends of increased market concentration nationally and regionally, particularly among the top four packers, distributors and retailers. USDA plans to continue its investigative study and will likely issue new rules in coming months.

Additionally, the agency announced a new rule proposal intended to increase competition and address unfair practices in livestock markets. The rule addresses ways to ensure base prices in fed cattle purchasing agreements, or alternative marketing agreements, are representative of relevant market conditions. This is intended to address concerns that AMAs negatively affect prices on the spark marker and distort fed cattle trading. USDA will be accepting comments on the proposal before releasing a final rule.

Officials with the U.S, Cattlemen’s Association commended USDA for its investigation into competition and fairness in the meat industry. They expressed hope that hope identifying the trend of continued consolidation will help inform future decisions.

The USCA said it was also carefully reviewing the preview of the price discovery options to be presented.

“For years, our group has sought avenues to increase price discovery and transparency in fed cattle markets and we look forward to submitting comments to further our efforts to foster a fair and competitive market for all cattle producers,” a USCA spokesperson added.

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