U.S. agencies say workshops will 'promote dialogue'

By TIM HEARDEN

Capital Press

Ranchers are expected to converge on Fort Collins, Colo., on Aug. 27 for a much-anticipated government hearing on competition in the livestock industry.

But what's exactly on the agenda has been kept under wraps.

The hearing at Colorado State University is part of a series of antitrust workshops on competition in agriculture hosted by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Attorney General Eric Holder.

After opening remarks, Vilsack and Holder will participate in a roundtable discussion that will also include Christine Varney, the assistant attorney general for antitrust cases, according to a government news release.

More panels will follow and will include "ranchers, academics, processors and other industry representatives," the release states. But a list of the actual participants had yet to be released as of early this week.

The two agencies "have worked aggressively to ensure that the joint workshops successfully promote dialogue among interested parties concerning competition and regulatory issues in the agriculture industry," USDA press secretary Caleb Weaver told the Capital Press in an e-mail.

"To achieve this goal, both departments have worked to include a broad set of perspectives from the farming and ranching community, as well as from industry and academia," he said.

The lineup could be significant in light of past workshops, which have been criticized by some as being weighted toward opponents of large-scale production agriculture.

For instance, of the 14 people on two government-selected panels at a poultry industry workshop in Normal, Ala., this spring, only four spoke in favor of the industry as it is currently structured, according to Richard Lobb, a National Chicken Council spokesman.

Jess Peterson, executive vice president of the U.S. Cattlemen's Association, believes the beef discussions will be balanced. The USCA will have a representative on a panel, though Peterson would not say who it will be.

"They're going to hear from producers, feeders, packers ... an independent packer and a packer-feeder," Peterson said. "I'm extremely optimistic that all sides will have a voice in it."

But Colin Woodall, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association's vice president of government affairs, doesn't share Peterson's optimism. The NCBA suggested a list of names, including producers and feedlot operators and people from the legal and economic fields, Woodall said.

"We're hoping we have a balanced panel here," he said. "Our concern is we've seen the panels in the past and didn't think they were as balanced as they could be. With something as important as this, we want to make sure our voice is getting heard."

Whatever the makeup of the panels, one group is working to make sure it's well represented in the audience. The Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America has a goal of bringing 25,000 rural residents to the workshop.

R-CALF has thrown its support behind proposed restrictions on the marketing of livestock and poultry, including barring packers from acquiring livestock from other packers and setting up an arbitration process to handle disputes between packers and producers.

"We are encouraging all of rural America to show up in the center of the United States in Fort Collins, Colo., to demonstrate it is in fact the will of rural Americans that we take immediate steps to fundamentally change the course of the U.S. cattle industry," said Bill Bullard, R-CALF's chief executive officer.

Woodall said the NCBA is encouraging its members to go as well.

"What I hope comes out of the meeting is that this issue is too important to use these workshops as the sole instigator for any sort of rule-making action or farm bill action," Woodall said. "This is a complicated subject, especially when it comes to the cattle business, and there are two sides. Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to hear both sides."

Online

Antitrust workshops Web site: http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/workshops/ag2010/index.htm