Editorial

By the Capital Press

They're called "hearings," but in political parlance they're really not much more that jaw-boning sessions and photo opportunities. These are little more than gab fests put together by the Obama administration to bad mouth "Big Ag."

First, let's get one thing straight. There are plenty of agricultural issues that deserve an open and candid discussion and close legal scrutiny, and packer concentration, dairy pricing and the seed industry are among them.

But because they are important issues, they need to be addressed in important forums, not political sideshows.

They furthermore deserve the addition of factual evidence, complete with subpoenas and other ways of bringing the truth into the open. And if there really is an actionable issue, the Department of Justice attorneys should take it to court, not sit at a table ratchet-jawing about it.

"I think you will see an historic era of enforcement that will almost inevitably grow from the partnership that we have established," Attorney General Eric Holder said, referring to the USDA, whose chief, Tom Vilsack, was seated next to him at the opening act in Iowa.

Vilsack came closest to getting it right in his remarks.

"This is not just about farmers and ranchers," he said. "It's really about the survival of rural America. We've seen a significant decline in the number of farmers and ranchers and that translates into a significant decline in the number of people living in rural America."

He predicted that there would be broad new policies to ensure big companies don't have too much sway over the prices they pay to farmers or charge to consumers, according to the Associated Press.

But getting a bunch of politicians and political appointees around a table with the television lights on may be the worst possible way to get to the bottom of these -- or any other -- issues. It makes them look inept and dilutes whatever hope farmers and ranchers have that any issues will be effectively addressed.

Certainly, the participants are talking about "fact-finding" and other niceties. But the reality is contained in a statement a federal attorney made last year.

"We will approach the matters that come before the division and the upcoming workshops without any preconceptions and cannot promise any particular answers or results," Christine Varney, assistant attorney general with the Justice Department's antitrust division, said in a speech last year. "I can assure you, however, that we are committed to a careful and comprehensive examination of the marketplace."

In other words, don't hold your breath.

In this week's Capital Press, reporter Mateusz Perkowski reported on several antitrust issues, including the concentration of meat packers. In it, he points out not only the concerns of ranchers but the results of past antitrust efforts the federal government has undertaken, including one in 2008.

He similarly found that there's more than one side to the controversies surrounding the seed companies and dairy pricing and that the antitrust laws are not really what they seem. They work differently from the popular notions about antitrust.

One thing is clear amid all of the chatter. If Holder and his crew have a case against any of these companies, they shouldn't be having a series of hearings. They'd be locked and loaded and headed for court.

As it stands, though, the main product of these and other "hearings" will be hot air.