The legislature could override her veto, when in session, if everyone who voted in favor of the bill holds firm to their position and some of the absentees show up.

The farmer and the consumer are screwed again. The executive just mocks the constituents, and the legislature.

At the federal level, the same is happening. And the PRIME Act, which would have opened up the best custom slaughterhouses to serve the public without USDA inspections in a pilot project, got removed from the Senate version of the Farm Bill. Here is what the Trump admin did this week.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/usda-meatpacking-rules

“For years, meat corporations have abused hardworking farmers and ranchers. Now, the Trump administration is proposing to undo long-overdue progress made to level the playing field,” Emily Miller, staff attorney at Food & Water Watch, said Monday in a statement. “This move is a slap in the face to all those who have long fought for fair treatment in livestock and poultry markets.”

The USDA’s move comes amid increased meat sector consolidation, which studies by Food & Water Watch, More Perfect Union, and others have found results in higher consumer prices and lower farmer profits.

Over the course of his two terms in office, Trump has boosted the meatpacking industry at the expense of worker rights, competition, and public health. His administration refused to issue binding rules requiring businesses to institute safety measures amid the Covid-19 pandemic, and he invoked the Defense Production Act to classify meatpacking plants as critical infrastructure and force them to stay open even as the coronavirus ravaged industry workers.

Trump has also supported corporate monopolization in meatpacking, and his administration has shut down a Department of Justice antitrust probe of alleged industry collusion. Just four meatpackers control approximately 80% of the market. Meanwhile, cattle producers who in 1980 received 63 cents for every dollar paid by consumers for beef were receiving just 37 cents four decades later.

“We need robust enforcement of antitrust and fair trade practice laws to finally protect producers from meatpackers’ fundamentally unfair and illegal practices,” Miller said on Monday. “These rollbacks will do the opposite. We won’t rest until USDA does its job by putting producers above corporations.”

IPAK-EDU is grateful to Meryl’s CHAOS letter (Critical Health Analysis and OpinionS) as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More