Washington Ag Today November 17, 2009 Dates have been announced for the first ever joint Department of Justice and USDA workshops to discuss competition and regulatory issues in the agriculture industry. Unfortunately none of the workshops will be in the northwest. They are scheduled for Iowa, Alabama, Colorado, Washington D.C. and Wisconsin. Different topics will be addressed at each workshop with the Iowa session focusing on crop farmers, the Alabama session on poultry, dairy issues in Wisconsin and cattle issues in Colorado. They will get underway in March of next year.

R-CALF USA has long criticized what it says is the lack of competitive markets for cattle and the organization’s executive Bill Bullard says they are pleased these workshops are being held.

Bullard: “Our cattle industry is fast going the way of the hog and the poultry industries, which are now almost completely integrated from birth to plate. And if we want to have an opportunity for independent producers we are going to have to address this competition issue. And we are very pleased to see the Justice Department, for the first time in history, joining with USDA to conduct this type of investigation. So we are hopeful. It is a long time coming but we are going to have to work hard to make sure something positive comes out of this.”

Justice and USDA will accept written and electronic comments on competitive and regulatory issues until December 31^st of this year. More information and updates will be at the U.S. Department of Justice website.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.

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