USDA Secretary Dan Glickman announced "new actions and reviewed progress made by USDA in regulatory enforcement, research and education, and market information, to address concentration in agriculture and promote competition in markets."
"I continue to be concerned," he said, "about the concentration of more and more of the agriculture industry into fewer and fewer hands," said Glickman. As a result, Glickman will ask Congress to: Strengthen Enforcement of the Agricultural Fair Practices Act and Expand Enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act to have authority over live poultry dealers, as currently exists for violations by meat packers. Also, USDA hopes to Strengthen Investigations Into Anti- Com- petitive Practices by "placing economic, statistical, and legal expertise into GIPSA's field offices."
To fund the overhaul, USDA will ask Congress for an additional $1.65 million in its 1998 GIPSA budget request to Congress. USDA will also ask for an additional $750,000 to fund new poultry responsibilities. Glickman then announced plans to "broaden producer education and outreach in risk management and marketing." USDA will hold a roundtable meeting this summer to seek comments to focus current and planned research and education initiatives to address risk management strategies, contracting, strategic planning and decision making.
A USDA Backgrounder indicated that four major investigations are currently underway -- dealing with cattle procurement in the Texas Panhandle, slaughter hog procurement in the central United States, poultry contract settlements in several states, and lamb procurement. The Wall Street Journal reported that officials at the USDA are also pursuing three major investigation of alleged anticompetitive practices in the meatpacking industry and possibly a fourth investigations into unfair dealings with poultry producers. According to WSJ, the companies under investigation include IBP Inc., Cargill Inc.'s Excel Corp., ConAgra Inc.'s Monfort Inc, which together control about 80% of the cattle slaughter market and Tyson Foods Inc., the nation's leading poultry processor.
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