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Well, good afternoon, and I
think you know how this works. We will follow the same pattern
that we did this morning for our
public testimony section. Again, we ask that comments be
limited to two minutes each, and
we'll just go microphone to
microphone and work through as many people
as we possibly can that would
like to provide a comment. And so, with that, we will start
right over here. Thank you. My name is Sarah Borron, and I'm
here today representing Food &
Water Watch. We want to thank the Department
of Justice and USDA for holding
these hearings and dedicating the important
time and energy necessary to
investigate these matters. We, along with 32,000 other
petitioners who have signed a
petition we submitted, recently urged the Department of
Justice and USDA to continue to
take action to investigate and change the antitrust
situation for agriculture. We submitted 32,000 names, as
Sienna from WhyHunger mentioned
earlier today, Other organizations have worked
together to submit over 240,000
signatures urging action. That's over a quarter of a
million people who are concerned
about how corporate control is
affecting their food choices, affecting
farmers' abilities to make a
living, affecting what they see on the
ground every day, affecting low
income people. We want to urge the DOJ and USDA
to implement the GIPSA rule, a
message that I hope has come
through loud and clear from several
people who've spoken today. We also urge you to complete the
look-back investigation over
agribusiness mergers that
occurred over the last decade and also to work with the FTC to
include food retail and
processing in your
investigations. Thank you. Yes. My name's David Hutchins. I'm from Ohio. I started raising cattle in
1955. Plus, over the years my wife and
I and our family has raised
thousands of head of sheep,
hogs, and cattle. The one thing I've heard here
today is I haven't heard anybody
come here asking for a
handout. All we're asking for is a fair
market. The hog guy here from Iowa, he
must do a really good job. He must treat his cooperatives
right. And he lives in a particular
area. But I used to raise from fair to
finish --it was a family
operation --4,000 head of hogs
from fair to finish. You know why I can't now? All the auction markets I took
them to are gone. All the local hog markets are
gone, high-end holding hog
markets are gone. There's not a packer in the
state of Ohio that kills many
hogs. There's not a packer in the
state of Ohio that can kill a
50,000-pound load of cattle. But yet, Wood County, Ohio fed
more fat cattle than anybody in
the United States years ago. Washington and Knox County were
the largest sheep producers in
the United States. Fayette and Clinton County used
to be the two largest, except for
near Quincy, Illinois -- I can't think of the county in
Illinois -- were the largest hog
producers. We have lost all the feeders in
northwest Ohio. A 90-year old guy called me last
week and he said, Dave, I'm 90
years old. I'm broke. We're having to put our farms up
for auction. We used to feed thousands of
head of cattle. We used to own 600 acres of
ground. We used to own one of the
largest livestock yards in Ohio. And here, after all that work
and everything, I'm now broke. It's not that we're asking for a
handout. It's --all that we're asking for
is our share of the market in a
fair playing field. We talk about Walmart and these
big companies. It's up to Justice Department
what you do to them, not me. We do live in a democracy, in a
capitalistic society where
everyone should be able to make
money. If we can work together --and I
want to thank you for letting me
get up here on the
microphone today and holding this event today
because it proves the democracy
system's still working. I have six children and 16
grandchildren. I spent my own money to come
here today. My wife took off work to take
care of the cattle. You know, she also baby sits
grandchildren and everything
else. That's my problem. I don't care about that. I thought it was worth the time
to come. But if we look at the future
--and as Christine Varney said,
even the security of this
country, the foundation of this country,
if 50 percent of the GNP is
agriculture and the foundation
is the family farm. Thank you. Hello. My name is Kenny Fox. I'm President of the South
Dakota Stockgrowers Association. We wholeheartedly support these
rules and appreciate what you are
trying to accomplish for
us. I'm going to give you a little
bit of a story about my life and
my family. My wife and I are both third
generation cattle producers. I got started in the business in
1973. It took 12 calves to buy a brand
new pickup. Today it takes 40 to 50. I haven't been able to purchase
a new one since 2001. Yes, we've got an increase in
prices this year, and I'm
grateful for it, and I think it's
due to the fact that USDA and the Department of Justice
has been investigating our
markets. Thank you for doing that. With that said, in 2005, we
received the highest prices we
ever got for our cattle. This year we got $100 a head
less. In 2005, our input costs were
considerably less than they are
today. The prices received today don't
necessarily reflect what it takes
to keep an operation
going, and so I --we need a better
price to stay in business. I've been in business for 37
years, and I'm grateful to be in
business that long. But I seen a lot of my friends
and neighbors that couldn't
survive, and I don't know why we have,
because with these prices, it's
very difficult to do that. At the same time in 2005, when
we received these high prices for
our calves, choice retail
beef was at $4.09 a pound. We received $100 a head less, as
I stated before, for our calves
this fall, and in June of 2010, the choice
retail meat price was at a near
record of $4.49 a pound. So producers like myself are
being gouged as well as
consumers, and we need enforcement of the
Packers and Stockyards Act. Thank you. I'm Peter Carstensen from
University of Wisconsin Law
School. I'm sorry that Christine has
left. I had a chance yesterday to
speak directly to Jon Liebowitz
in a public meeting about the --
push him a little bit about the FTC's side of this
equation, and I have a sense that
there may be more
responsiveness there. But I take it, Mark and John,
you have access to your
superiors, and the real central question
right now at the end of this
meeting is what the USDA and the division are going to do
about the issues that have been
raised. Right now I'd have to say that
we are seeing movement at the
USDA and inertia at the Justice
Department. USDA has the PASA rules under
way. I understand that the Dairy
Advisory Committee is considering
some reforms of the milk
marketing order system that could address some of the
serious problems there. From the division, on the other
hand, we have in the dairy area a
modest merger case, but we also have a major
investigation that was commenced
a number of years ago by the
division which has been updated
substantially by private
litigation to which the division
can have And the division, so far as I
know, has failed totally to take
advantage of that to understand what has been
going on in the dairy markets for
the last three or four years. Moreover, those private cases
are now on the verge of being
settled, so private parties are going to
be deciding what is the shape of
dairy markets in the near
future. The Justice Department
definitely needs to get into that
area so that it's not ignorant of
the issues and knows what's going on. With respect to seed technology,
the Department is allegedly
looking for a monopoly case to
bring. There is one that has been
investigated for a substantial
period of time. The investigation has gone on
long enough. It needs either to say that
there is a violation that it
wants to pursue or acknowledge that it does not
believe the antitrust laws can
get at that kind of monopoly. Today, I heard some very
plausible kinds of information
with respect to both beef and
poultry that I would hope Bill Starling
has run out of here to start an
investigation on. If so, it will be the first word
of any investigation from the
Justice Department in the
beef or poultry area so far. It's time, in other words, now
that the hearings are over, for
the Justice Department to get
to work. My name is Becky Caertas, and
I'm the Program Director for the Contract Agriculture
Reform Program for the Rural
Advancement Foundation
International USA, which is a nonprofit
organization based out of North
Carolina. And today we have many poultry
growers here in the crowd, every
one with not the cowboy hat
on but the ball caps. The blue ball caps, are all
poultry growers from Virginia and
West Virginia, and we also have some from
Alabama as well. We really appreciate them taking
their time to come and listen to
this final workshop. I've had the --really the great
opportunity to travel throughout
the southeast once the
GIPSA proposed rules came out and listen and talk with growers
about what these new proposed
rules would do, and you know, most of the
growers that I spoke with, they
were very pleased with the rules. Actually, they were ecstatic
that finally somebody in the
Department of Justice, the Department of Agriculture
finally realized the abuses that
they are under and actually are doing something
about it. They felt that they are actually
addressing protecting their
investments, protecting them
against retaliation, and making sure their pay is
based on what the grower does and
not the company decisions. Valerie touched on part of that
on the other end, that the
company can decide the amount of
feed and the weight of the birds. However, the company decisions
in terms of the inputs that they
get on the front end makes a
large difference in how much they are paid, and
ultimately, unfortunately, if
they are eventually cut off with a million-dollar investment
left hanging. However, many of these growers
that I spoke with that were
ecstatic about the rules and felt like they would
directly impact and improve their
lives were afraid to even sign a
comment because of how easy it is
for a company to ensure that they're paid less, thousands of
dollars less, or even cut off, again, with a million-dollar
investment hanging over their
head, just for submitting a
comment. This should not happen in
America, but it is. These companies were also
directly intimidating growers to
sign comments against the rules by having their field service
people come out and say, you need
to sign this, not telling them what it was,
and the grower knew that the
field service person knew that if
they didn't sign it, that they were supporting the
rules and they might be
retaliated against. So USDA and Department of
Justice can do things right now
to solve this. Publish the final GIPSA
livestock rule. Be proactive in enforcing this
and other packers and stockyards
regulations through
collection of information and investigations instead of
having individual growers file
complaints because of
retaliation. Issue a final report on the
amount of regional competition in
the poultry industry and use this regional measure
when examining mergers in the
poultry industry. And finally, collect and
publicly report income that
poultry growers make just like
beef and Thank you. I'm Kathy Ozer, and I work in
the National Family and Farm
Coalition here in Washington,
D.C., and basically the last two
comments, both what Becky just
discussed about poultry and about
GIPSA and the earlier comment by
Professor Peter Carstensen around
action on dairy and really seeing some movement
quickly on these issues is the
core of my comments right
now. Joel Greeno, who spoke earlier
today and has spoken at earlier
events, has just left to take his plane
to get home so he can be milking
his cows at 6:00 a.m. and
7:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. The level of desperation that I
think has been reflected today and reinforced by comments of
both Secretary Vilsack and both Department of Justice
speakers as well that they've
heard across the country is
deepening. As winter comes on and the
holidays, we're dealing with farmers who
are in some of the worst
conditions that they've felt in
20 and that the need for government
to take action and to be
proactive and to move forward on these
issues has never been greater. So, I know there's been, today,
a really good opportunity for a
public comment, a really good opportunity for
the panels to get at some of the
issues that haven't been
addressed as much during the earlier sessions, and
I really hope that going into
2011, we will see real action
on these issues and not a continuation of
discussions or studies or
excuses. But given the political
realities and the economic
conditions facing farmers, their
families, and their communities, we really need to see that
movement forward as soon as
possible. So thank you for all the hard
work that's gone into this, and
we know that doing these kinds
of events are not easy, but at this moment, they're the
most critical thing that is being
done on these issues by
the government, and we look forward to working
closely and seeing the next steps
and working with you on
those. Thank you. Hello. My name is Maggie
Ellinger-Locke. I'm a 3L law student at CUNY
School of Law in New York, and
I'm involved with a lot of
different organizations, but I'm here today just
representing myself. My comments are brief and maybe
a little activisty. We've heard from a lot of
different stakeholders today and
from many different perspectives, but the audience response has,
without question, been most
positive to the voices that are supportive of food
sovereignty. Food sovereignty is defined as
democratic control over the food
system. The world wants food
sovereignty. Look to La Via Campesina, the
world's largest social movement,
for evidence of this. The people of the United States
want it too. Can we get a commitment from the
USDA, the DOJ, and the people in
this room to give the
people what we want? The people want democratic
control over the food system. We demand food sovereignty. Hi. My name's Mike Weaver, and I'm
here representing the poultry
growers in Virginia and West
Virginia. I want to start out by thanking
USDA and DOJ for holding these
workshops. I think you've made history
here, but the true test of
whether it's all going to be
worth it So, we're hoping you take this
information and act on what
you've gathered here. I also wanted to thank the
nongovernment organizations that
are here supporting us. We appreciate you folks. You do a lot for us. Thank you. This workshop was supposed to be
about the retail disparity and
what the farmer receives for
their hard work and the retail price of food
that consumers pay. Well, Valerie Ruddle was up
there earlier today trying to
explain about a receipt, and I want to give you a little
more detail about it. We have a copy of a receipt from
KFC for a 16-piece chicken meal
that was purchased in
Virginia, and that 16-piece chicken meal
cost $36.99. Well, out of that $36.99, the
company who sold that chicken to
KFC made five to six dollars. KFC made about $30. The grower who raised that
chicken made $0.40. Now, think about that. Out of $36.99 the grower got
$0.40. Quite a disparity there, huh? Currently, we have no say in our
contracts. They're take it or leave it. We're forced to compete against
each other based on the inputs
that the company supplied us
that we have no say in, and just in general, the way
that poultry is produced in this
country is not fair. It needs to be changed. I thought it was curious that
the grocery representatives that
were here today on this
panel, I don't recall one of them
mentioning the farmer and his
situation, you know. None of them try to explain the
fact that the farmer hasn't had
an increase in how many
years. Way too long. I think that the new GIPSA rules
that have been mentioned today, I
think that overall
they're good. They need some amendments. We've suggested some amendments
and some clarification to them, and I think they aught to be
enacted as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you for giving me the
chance to comment and for the
Department of Justice and USDA
for I rise in support of the new
GIPSA rules that have been
proposed. I'm a cattle producer. I'm Bob Fortune from western
South Dakota, and I'm a
cow/calf/yearling operation, and as the way things are going
--I'm very nervous in front of a
microphone in case you
hadn't noticed. But our cost of production has
increased steadily for the last
few years and the last couple years has
went up dramatically, and our costs or what we're
receiving for our product has
gone up just slightly. And if it keeps going this way,
then we'll be out of business
too. But as you look across rural
America, all the small towns, half main street is boarded up
because there's no money coming
back into the rural
communities from agriculture and production. It's all going out into the big
major corporations who are
siphoning this money off into the
-- into Wall Street the way it
seems to me. So I'm supporting the new GIPSA
rules, and I thank you for the
chance to comment. Hi. My name is Carolyn Mugar, and
I'm with Farm Aid, and I've been before you both
before in Madison, and I'll be
very brief. But I do want to say, I think
Mike Weaver said it all in a way,
and he said, is this all
going to be worth it? And I think it would be --we all
are here today. People have come with great
difficulty. Farmers from all over the
country have been coming for nine
or ten months now, and it's been an opportunity
that we hugely appreciate. But I think that communicating
with all of us as quickly as
possible what is going to be
done -- and I know it's different for
different areas of your work and
for your follow-up, but I think it's hugely
important because we really,
really need to know when things
are and what is going to be
happening. As Kathy pointed out, it's very
dire in a lot of sectors, and
people have poured their
hearts out to you, for which I'm sure you're very
grateful, but we really need to
know soon. We need to know as you know what
you're going to be doing. Thank you so much. My name is Jerry Turner. I'm a poultry and beef cattle
producer from the beautiful
Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. I think the average American
citizen does not understand and have a clue that the
challenges that the American
farmer faces today. Unfortunately, I think the
federal government is in that
shame shape. I don't think they quite
understand our challenges either. You know, there's been a lot of
good information shared here
today, and I think we can say from that
information that we as American
farmers are not receiving our fair share
of the markets. Something that maybe has not
been bought out is our
investment. We have a huge amount of money
tied up in our land, our
livestock, our equipment, our
time, and I'm not sure that --in fact,
I know that we're not receiving
the return on that
investment that we should. You know, the American people
here enjoy the most abundant food
supply in the world, the safest and the cheapest food
supply in the world, but yet the
American farmer is
struggling financially. Now, there's something wrong
with that picture. Things needs to change, and they
need to change quick or else you may have to put the
American farmer on the endangered
species list. Thank you. I'm Vaughn Meyer. I feel a little guilty using
this again today and taking a
spot up, but first off I
shouldn't be here. It's not because there's
something to do at home. It's because in 1980, I almost
lost my place. We came close to losing it by
the skin of our teeth. We rebounded a little during the
90s. And how did we do it? My wife worked off the farm, and
I worked my three children to
death, and that's how we got
there. We built equity back into our
place. Times are a little better, but I
will say in the last three years
we've been losing equity
again. We're rebounding right back to
where we were in the 80s. There's been a couple points
here that I want to talk about
today that we've been close to, but we haven't really addressed
a couple of them, or one of them
in particular. I'm a great admirer of Carl
Wilkins who is the economist that
did a lot of advisory work for
this city down here through three decades of the
40s, 50s and 60s. And as you probably know, Carl
said that the only true wealth
comes from the land, and the only renewable wealth
comes from agriculture. And most of us are proud to be
the fact that we are the true
wealth of the land. Anything but is unearned income. It's in the form of loans and
subsidies and that sort of thing,
and that's all a negative
drain on our economy. And my point is here that this
year animals and agriculture
committed $50,000 of that new
wealth, or $50 million --excuse me --of
that new wealth to our nation, but we still feel pretty bad
about it out in agriculture
because the parity level's been
67.2 percent. If you take in from 1962 to 19--
2002. Excuse me. And if that parity level would
have been a hundred percent, we
could have contributed
another 25 million to that. And then if you take Carl's
multiplication factor times
seven, that would have been another
$175 million that we would have
contributed to this nation and
to our country. And if you stop and think about
that and go back over all the
years and calculate it out --I haven't
had the time to do that, and then
compound the interest on
that, that maybe is what has brought
up this national debt that we
have now. That figure would probably be
equal to that. So, if that parity had been
there a long time ago for our
products, we probably wouldn't be where we
are in the national debt today, and if we return that parity to
--and agriculture is one of the
few industries that are left
in this country that is produced and processed
and everything in the United
States-- every other industry is exiting
us real fast-- and that we are
the only hope for democracy
in this country, because as Carl Wilkins points
out, the countries like Russia that
have lost their income when they
went into a socialist
system, animals became They butchered them. Right now, Russia's trying to
rebuild that. I sold cattle last year to
Russia to help them rebuild their
herds. Countries like India that never
had a value because they were
religious purposes on their
cattle, they've been struggling for
years. Animal agriculture, and all of
agriculture in general, are the
only hope for democracy in
this country. It's not just about keeping
farmers on the land. It's about keeping democracy in
the United States. And the other point I want to
bring up here real quick, and I
know I'm out of time, but today we've not heard much
about these free trade
agreements. These free trade agreements are
one of the biggest hindrance on
agriculture that we have
right out here today. I thank you. Thank you. My name is Brother David
Andrews. I work for Food & Water Watch. I have been a participant in the
agricultural work of this country
for the last 30 years, at
least. I travelled throughout the south
with Raffi and Mary Klaus working
for the Poultry Growers
Associations. I've been a member of OCM for 15
years, an officer of the board. I served on the Farm
Foundation's Future of Animal
Agriculture in North America and the Pew Commission's study
of industrial agriculture, and
I've listened to the voices of
the people of the land, and I have to say that I
appreciate all that you have been
doing at the Department of
Justice and the Department of
Agriculture. But I also look at these issues
not simply as legislative or
governmental. I look at these issues as moral
issues. You've heard these stories, and how can you not attach a
moral meaning to the stories of
the suffering of our farmers
and of our landscape and of our animals and of our
environment? There are many levels at which
this issue comes together here
around the issue of
concentration, many ways in which the issue of
competition is a part of the
analysis, and my hope is that as we go
along, that we will use the moral
force of our consciences to
make the dramatic changes beyond what we're proposing now
that need to happen in rural
America in order to revitalize
our landscape. Thank you. Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Nancy Romer, and I'm
with the Brooklyn Food Coalition. We're an advocacy and
educational group that's trying
to make changes in the food
system and to mobilize people around
it. And I want to thank the
Department of Agriculture and
Department of Justice, but particularly I want to thank
all the farmers here and all the advocates who've
really given me an education that
I will try to bring back to
the people that I work with. The problem I want to address is
climate change, and I don't know if was
addressed in the very first
session because I didn't get here
until But the intense concentration of
agribusiness and food retail
forces growing transportation and packaging practices that are
harmful to the environment and
contribute to climate
change. They make local and regional
food systems less viable because
of their competitive edge because they control so much of
the market. The high social cost of
corporate industrial agriculture
and food retail are going to be a major factor
in undoing our nation in terms of
climate change. If you look at some of the
research that's been organized by
Bill McKibben with his latest
book "Earth," by Anna Lappe, "Diet For a Hot
Planet," the wisdom is that about one
third of greenhouse gases that
are being emitted today are due
to agriculture and that the full oil-based
practices where the agriculture
is expelling carbon rather than
sequestering it, all the transportation and
retail costs associated with it. So if that figure is accurate,
and it seems to be, the forced farming techniques
that the major players are
putting upon all of our farmers
are contribute to all of this
climate change. The large contractor's seed in
input companies and retail
corporations are dictating
methods We need to mitigate climate
change, to adopt to climate
change. We're going to see increased
flooding. We're going to see increased
hailstorms, tornados, hurricanes. This is all going to happen. We need to have regional and
local food systems. And I'd like you to take all of
the capacities of your
departments and help to change some of the
rules to support local and
regional agricultural systems so that we can survive climate
change when it happens. Hi. My name is Angelia Salvalem. I'm from New York. I'm representing Slow Food, an
organization of thousands of
people across this country who
are interested in food and farming, in sustainable
food and farming. And first, I also want to thank
the USDA and the DOJ for having
these hearings, and also I really want to thank
the farmers. I am one of those consumers that
does not know a lot about our
farm system. I grew up in the Bronx, and we
don't have a lot of farming
happening in the Bronx, and I really appreciate all the
things that I have learned today. I wanted to talk a little bit
about biodiversity and how consolidation of big
agriculture is less --causes a
less diverse system. Has anybody heard of a Newtown
Pippin Apple? Anybody from New York know what
that is? Not a lot of hands. A few though. The Newtown Pippin Apple is a
delicious green-skinned apple
that comes from New York, that actually comes from New
York City from Queens County, and
I did not learn about this
until about six months ago. I was born and raised in New
York and have been going to
supermarkets and different food
outlets in New York my whole life, and I
have never seen a Newtown Pippin
Apple. The thing about corporate
consolidation of agriculture from
seed supply, to farming, to
packing to all of these different layers involved in the
food system is that it doesn't
allow us to have choice, and that's what this country is
about. Right? Freedom of choice. This is what democracy is, that
we have a choice. It reduces our choice. It doesn't allow us to choose
different options. So there's about five to seven
varieties in my local store, and
pretty much anyone can name
them, from Kansas to Missouri to
Oregon, we all have the same
ones, right, red delicious,
Granny Rome apples, but the Newtown
Pippin is an apple that does not
--is not represented in my
local store, and I can only go to a farmer's
market to get it. And part of that is because of
the seed supply and also because of the
consolidation of retail outlets
that only choose very specific
kinds and kinds of products to sell,
and so it's reducing my choice as
a consumer. And I would say to you that I
urge you that after a year of
study to please take action
because I would like to choose what kind of food I have, and I
would like more options. Thank you. Thank you. I'm Bill Roenigk with the
National Chicken Council. I would like to say, for the
record, that with corn at $6 a
bushel, soybean meal $350 a ton, I'm not aware of any chicken
companies that are currently
making any profits. Nonetheless, we continue to
increase production, and I think,
at least for the growers and other parts of the food
chain, that's a good thing, but
at the moment it's not a good
thing for our profits. The broiler industry has been
vertically integrated for five
decades, so we have a history. We have a track record. Most broiler companies have a
listing of farmers, family
farmers, who would like to grow
chickens or would like to add capacity to
the houses they already have. With all due respect to Ms.
Ruddle, I would like to ask a
question, if I may. If she's still here, perhaps
she'd like to answer. But as I understand her comments
--and if I'm incorrect, please
correct me --but five years
ago, Ms. Ruddle said she decided to
begin to grow chickens. That's good. We appreciate the 20-some
thousand family farms who grow
chickens for us. They're dedicated. They're hardworking. They are a major part of why we
are successful as an industry, why we're able to offer the best
meat value to consumers. So without growers, we would not
be successful, and if we keep
growing, we're going to need
more growers. But my question would be, we
have a track record. We have a history. If you --five years ago, you
either went to the company or you
went to the lender or you
went to both and said okay, is this a wise investment? Is this going to cash flow? Is this going to work? Somebody must have said yes, or
you must have said okay, I'm
going to take a risk and hope
for the best. But if I understand her comments
correctly --and I don't mean any
disrespect, Ms. Ruddle, if you're still here --but why
five years ago, knowing what you
know, or at least I think you must
have known, why would you get
into a business that you feel, at least from your comments,
that's not a very good business? And if that could be explained
to me, that would be a good
takeaway I'd like to have from
the meeting. And I appreciate it. Thank you. Hi. My name is Hannah Bernhardt, and
I'm here on behalf of the
National Young Farmers Coalition and the nonprofit organization,
the Greenhorns, whose mission is
to recruit, support and
promote young and beginning farmers in
America. Secretary Vilsack has stated a
goal of recruiting a hundred
thousand new farmers as the current population of
farmers rapidly retires. We're working hard to help our
country reach this goal, but young and beginning farmers
face many barriers, including
access to land and access to
capital. In the current marketplace,
young and beginning farmers can't begin to compete with
large corporations who do have
that access. Additionally, I grew up on a
farm in southern Minnesota, but I was never encouraged to
pursue farming as a career
because all the farmers I knew
were that farming is a terrible way
to make a living. My dad took an off-farm job in
the 80s to supplement our farm
income, and statistically, in
2007, 90 percent of all farm household
income in our country came from
off-farm sources. My own parents and families of
other young farmers I know are reluctant to support our
efforts to farm because they know
how hard we will struggle to make a profit in this
industry. So, if we're to reach Secretary
Vilsack's goal of a hundred
thousand new farmers in America, aspiring farmers need to feel
confident that they are entering
a fair marketplace and that they will be able to
support themselves and their
families when they pursue farming
as a career. Before I finish, I want to also
take a moment to thank the many
farmers in the room who, despite enduring years of
frustration with the industry and
likely quickly approaching
retirement, have not given up on advocating
for the future of American
agriculture. Your perseverance and patriotism
inspires us, and we really thank
you for being here today. And additionally, we also want
to thank the sign language
interpreters in the room. Thanks. John, I sit back here and I
listen to this and I wasn't going to say
anything until this guy from the
Chicken Council got up. And I'm going to be honest with
you, I'm the one that Ms. Varney
was talking about in
Normal, Alabama. I represent, or help represent,
650 chicken growers in the State
of Alabama, and out of all the 650 of them,
there's two that was not afraid
to come up here. I'm not saying I'm brave. I'm saying I'm a proud American,
I'm a veteran, and I need the
right to be able to talk to
you all today. This guy says that there's
people waiting in line, and he's probably right because
they want to be a part of
somebody that produces cheap food
for you all. The problem we've got, John, is
we don't have anybody to monitor
them and work to take care
of us. These GIPSA rules will probably
be the best thing we've ever had
if they pass, and I hope
they do. You know, it's hard for me to
talk to people about something
like he's talking about there when I know for a fact that I
got 45 growers in my county in
St. Clair County, Alabama. Out of the 45 growers, 42 of
them are not making a decent
living. If they're making money, why do
they need more growers? If they're not making money,
they'd be just like us. They'd go out of business. I could rant and rave all day,
you all, but this is a proud
country and I'm probably one that's
proud as they are in here, other
than the rest of the chicken
growers. John, we need you all's help. We need the rules passed, but we
need you to be watchdogs for us
as farmers. Thank you. I knew I should have gone before
him. My name is Rhonda Perry. I'm a livestock and grain farmer
from central Missouri. I'm with the Missouri Rural
Crisis Center, and as part of our organization,
we work with family farmers to
direct market independent
family farm raised pork. And I just feel like saying
after what we've just heard, that we desperately need you to
act on behalf of independent
family farm livestock producers so that we are not in the
situation that we just heard from
from the poultry growers. We can't afford to take hogs and
cattle down the road of poultry,
especially after what we
heard today and that I know you've heard
over this entire period of time
of listening sessions. In the hog industry, because I
tend to represent hog farmers, what we've seen in Missouri is
we've lost 90 percent of the hog
farmers in our state in the
last 25 years. We went from 23,000 hog farmers
marketing three million head of
hogs to 3,000 hog farmers marketing
three million head of hogs. We didn't change the number of
hogs that were being marketed or
produced in our state. We just transferred that wealth
and that knowledge and that economics from our
rural communities from
independent family farmers to a few, very small number of
corporate packers who now own the
hogs in our state. We didn't do that because hog
farmers just decided, you know,
this is a lot of work, I think I'll just get out of the
business, take a vacation, work
two jobs in town to
maintain my row crop operations. This happened because family
farmers, like myself and my
family, went from having five markets to
market our hogs on a weekly basis
to being lucky if we had
one take-it-or-leave-it opportunity
to market our hogs on a weekly
basis. I think I just got to address
the Iowa hog farmer. I am so glad that somebody in
Iowa is doing well raising hogs,
but I think it's USDA's job
to deal with and address the issues that put
those 90 percent of hog farmers
out of business. And I just --I'm going to skip
right to the consumer piece. It's been a really fun day
hearing how a lot of what's going
on in this industry has been
consumer driven. Apparently, consumers are
demanding sushi bars in their
stores. They're demanding dry cleaners. It's amazing all the things
consumers have been demanding,
and as a consumer I have missed
out on all that. But what I think what we heard
today is the consumers are
joining with family farmers in demanding what they really
need and what family farmers
really need, and that is a level
playing field and the ability of family
farmers to make a decent living
and consumers to have access to
quality, healthy food. That's all we're asking from our
government. We're not asking for a handout
or a hand up or anything else. We're just asking for the
ability to compete. And we can compete. We can out compete. The reality is if you're the
only player left standing, you
can say you're the most
efficient one, but if you have to compete with
independent family farmers,
you're out of business, and we hope you'll make that a
reality for us. My name is Eric Hedrick. I'm from the Contractor Poultry
Growers of the Virginias, and my comment is directed
towards the gentleman that said
he wondered why Valerie Ruddle
got into the business. Well, I bought the largest
poultry farm in West Virginia and
Virginia five years ago too, and I can tell you the reason
why she got into it is the
company lied. When you put numbers down on a
piece of paper to get the bankers
to loan you the money and then it don't follow
through, how do you make bank
payments? I started raising, five years
ago, raising a four-pound chicken
at about 37 or 38 days. Last year the company says well,
we're sorry, sir, we want to cut
back to a 375 chicken. Where's my other payments coming
from? We've heard a lot of information
here today, and I really didn't
want to get up here and
speak, but we really need these rules,
and we need them quick. Thank you. I'm Peter van Schaick. I'm from Vermont, came down
here, and I don't represent
anybody except myself. I'm somebody who started looking
at the food I eat a couple of
years ago, and what I found was confirmed
by what I've been reading about
the workshops. People who are growing the food
that I consume don't make a
sustainable living. I've talked to and done some
numbers and talked to farmers,
dairy farmers, and I did some wage calculations
using the Vermont living wage for
what farmers should be
paid for the amount of time they
spend producing milk that I
consume, and it was over $100,000
a I mean, if you figure out, 110
hours a week, if you're doing a
concentrated operation, maybe
more. If you got labor to supervise,
maybe more. If you're doing locational
grazing, maybe it's a little
less. But it's not a sustainable way
to earn a living. So when Bert Foer talked about
the notion about suppliers and the notion of water bedding
when the supplier drives down the
price that is paid, that it pays to a particular
supplier and yet the whole
industry of suppliers needs a
certain amount, or a particular supplier needs a
certain amount of money to get
by, what happens? Well, increased prices for other
customers, but there are other
kinds of shortcuts that
happen, and those shortcuts relate to
the problems that were identified
by the woman from Brooklyn, and that is you end up having
shortcuts taken in terms of the
environmental sustainability
of the practices. You start taking shortcuts in
terms of, like, do you do a
winter cover crop, do you not? I ended up going up and talking
to people that ran a two-day
conference on phosphorous in
Lake Champagne, and boy, is that a hot topic. I talked to the guy who ran
agriculture and markets, and as soon as I just whispered
the word "phosphorous" (makes
sound), and it's because he knows that
every time there's a heavy rain,
phosphorous is running off
of those lands that are being overworked and
aren't being properly attended to
because people have got bank
payments and they've got mortgages to pay
and they just can't make a go of
it. So when Bert talked about the
need for study of monopsony, I
really thought that made sense, and when I heard the woman, Mary
Henderson I think her name is,
talk about how there are
other things that need to be considered
within adequate antitrust
jurisprudence, it's obvious that consumer
welfare is only a part of the
picture. We've got to have an antitrust
law that looks up and down the
whole supply chain and looks
at farmer welfare and not just consumer welfare,
looks at farmer labor welfare and
not just these other
things, and then looks at the welfare of
the environment in which the
farmers are producing. And it's the monopsony power of
these concentrated purchases of
farm goods that are
stressing the people and the natural systems that are
producing food. So, one thing you might do on
the long-term is to follow Bert's
suggestion, which is to really take a look
at what's different about
monopsony power. Right now, antitrust
jurisprudence isn't solving the
problem. Thank you very much. And by the way, I appreciate the workshops
because they brought out the fact
to national attention that we've got a whole lot of
people besides consumers that are
very concerned about
fairness within the antitrust system
that's creating low --or is
contributing or is allowing to happen these
low prices for producers. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Basav Sen, and I'm
with the United Food and
Commercial Workers. I want to thank the Justice
Department and the USDA for
holding this series of workshops. And since the subject of today's
workshop is retail, I'd like to
bring us back to retail for
a little bit and talk about international
precedents. The Competition Commission in
the United Kingdom has
investigated Walmart and Tesco and Sainsbury for
anticompetitive practices. The Competition Commission in
Mexico has similarly investigated
Walmart, and their counterparts in South
Korea have investigated Walmart
and (inaudible), and we would strongly urge the
antitrust authorities here in the
U.S. to follow these international
leads by investigating
concentration in food retailing
here in Thank you. Thank you. I'm Bill Bullard, representing
R-Calf USA. And the industry segments that
are working hard to oppose what
you're doing and to oppose the GIPSA rule are
attempting aggressively to
dismiss all the evidence out
there that we are in a state of
crisis, and this crisis is
urgent. For example, they claim that for
the last 20 years we've had four
packers controlling about
80 percent of the industry. Therefore, there can be no
urgency associated with this. But in 1990, 20 years ago, we
had 250 firms that actually
slaughtered cattle for market
outlets. Today we're down, fewer than 92. So those four major packers in
1990 reigned over 250 market
outlets. Today, they reign over less than
100. Also, during that period, we saw
a tremendous consolidation in the
feeding sector. Thirty thousand independent
feeders left the industry. What we're seeing is the control
that the packers had exclusively
over the feeders is now
being pushed into the supply chain and is
affecting the cow/calf producers. We've never witnessed this level
of concentration in the history
of our industry, and the
situation is urgent. We also hear that we can justify
the loss of farmers and ranchers
because they're more
efficient. They're producing more beef on
the hoof than ever before. That is true. They are. But, at the same time, our
industry is shrinking in terms of
the size of the cattle herd, in terms of the size of the
number of producers, and as our
industry shrinks, we are unable to keep pace with
the growth in domestic beef
consumption, and we're making up the
difference with imports. And if you calculate the beef
equivalent of the live cattle and
the beef we import, we import about five million
cattle, which is approximately about the
same amount of cattle that they
claim have been displaced because of our increased
productivity. They also claim that the price
spreads do not matter. They claim that we've introduced
boxed beef and other market
efficiencies and other
processes that cost more. Fact of the matter is, when ERS
calculates that data, they use a standard animal in
1980, cut in the standard way,
sold in standard form. In 2009, they used that same
standard animal, cut up the same
standard way, in standard
form. Thank you. Hi, John. How you doing? My name is Dave Murphy. I'm the founder and Executive
Director of Food Democracy Now. We're a grassroots sustainable
agriculture advocacy group based
in Clear Lake, Iowa. I'd just like to say it's really
an honor to be here today. We've travelled, like many of
the other people in this room, to every one of these hearings
because we think it's an
important process to witness. We also think it's one of the
most important things that you
can do, that this
administration can do, to restore a basic sense of
fairness and justice and
democracy to how our food is
produced. I'd like to say on behalf of
CREDO Action and Food Democracy
Now, we'd like to submit over 200,000 comments and
signatures to the USDA and the
DOJ. I also want to thank all of our
coalition partners. Together we made over --we got
250,000, a quarter million,
signatures. I think that's a very
significant number. It says one, that the American
people really, really realize that there is something
fundamentally wrong with our food
system. It's pretty incredible that you
can get a quarter million people
to make a comment on
enforcement of antitrust laws in food and agriculture. A few years ago, five, ten years
ago, most people would not have
known that. Today, there's a growing
movement of people out there, and
you know, the fact is, the facts
are getting out. I'd like to say the American
Farm Bureau says they're the
voice of agriculture. Well, today, Food Democracy Now
would like to announce that we're
the voice of the American
people and people --that's pretty
funny, but it's about --the truth
is about the same in the first
statement, and that's a sad fact. We're here today because
agribusiness has walked all over
justice, the laws and democracy
in and I think it's time for this
administration to do the right
thing. I want you to know that a
quarter million people stand
behind you as you take action and
you We don't want just some simple
enforcement, some simple fines. We really want some of these
worst violators broken up, and I think that's the type of
action that the American people
and our family farmers
deserve. Thank you very much. Well, I think that concludes our
public testimony section, and I appreciate everybody who
has come here today here to
either provide comments or if you
just came here to listen, all of our panelists that came
here, and I thank all the
panelists that have participated
in and anybody who has come and
visited with us and talked to us
and provided us comments. I also thank all the
institutions all over the country
that we went and visited who were very gracious to us to
allow us to come there and take
over their place and completely run the workshop
from there. So I just want to thank
everybody for attending. I don't know if you have any
comments you'd like to make, but
I just --again, I thank you,
and have safe travels.
