The United States Department of Agriculture has set new regulations for meat packers to give smaller businesses and poultry producers better leverage in the industry.
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said the regulations will go into effect in June, but did not specify what changes have been made to the 2008 farm laws after two advocacy groups protests made complaints against the current regulations.
Currently the USDA guidelines favor large corporations over small and medium sized farms. The advocacy groups drew attention to the fact that meat packing is generally dominated by Tyson Foods Inc., Cargill, JBS USA , National Beef Packing Co and Smithfield Foods Inc.
Vilsack noted that the changes would make it easier for groups and producers to make complaints and for the USDA to be able to investigate the complaints and create solutions.
The current farm laws of 2008 prevented price discrimination between large and smaller farms. The laws made sure that larger corporations could not receive better prices for meat packaging. It also made mandated improvements over feed houses and gave swine and poultry producers designated amounts of time to make changes that could cost contracts with meat packers.
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