OPINION EDITORIAL
THE INDUSTRY NEEDS A REFEREE by Col. Joe Goggins, Northern Livestock Video Auction There has been a lot of discussion the last few years about fed cattle marketing and finding solutions to make it a fairer and more equitable situation on a consistent basis for both the producer and the feeder. I’ve had the great opportunity to sit in and be a part of many of these conversations, and one thing is blatantly obvious: the cattle industry of the United States will never totally agree or unify on any solutions that have to do with the way we market fed cattle. It’s plain and simple. However, I do believe that we, the U.S. cattle industry, had better come together and unify on some key issues that deal with fairness and incentives, not only for those of us in production agriculture; these issues also impact main street, rural America. We need to keep it alive and well. Something we can all agree upon within the livestock industry is the great need of a referee at the highest level of the livestock food chain, in order to hold the packers accountable. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) introduced the bipartisan Senate Bill 3870, or the Meat and Poultry Special Investigator Act of 2022 (Special Investigator Act). The summary of this bill states that it would establish the Office of the Special Investigator for Competition Matters. “Specifically, the office must use all available tools (e.g., subpoenas) to investigate and prosecute violations of the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 (P&S Act) […] the bill grants the office the authority to bring any civil or administrative action authorized by that action against a packer,” the summary writes. I believe that the Special Investigator Act, if passed, will give this industry that much-needed referee. It is not asking us to change the way we market our fed cattle, rather, it is simply putting someone in a career position to make sure the packing industry is playing by the rules of the P&S Act. I firmly believe that this position needs to be a career position, and not one that is politically appointed; the intent of the position should be to remain neutral and consistent in the way the P&S Act is enforced. The Office of the Special Investigator would also be very helpful in providing
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input on how the 100-year-old P&S Act could be updated to fit the times and ways of modern-day business. The way I like to illustrate my support of the Special Investigator Act is that, as young people growing up in America, we have all been taught how to be good, competitive citizens. We’ve played football, basketball and baseball. We’ve done speech and drama, showed cattle in 4-H and FFA, we’ve done the Little Britches rodeos. In all these endeavors growing up, we have literally had a judge or a referee. If we ever stepped out of bounds or broke the rules in any way, we came to realize at a young age that there are consequences and penalties for these violations. In the livestock industry, I think we can say in unison that all we want is someone who will enforce the P&S Act with a team of dedicated staff that has the ability to investigate the tough issues facing producers and hold bad actors accountable. Since I am in the mood, one other issue that we as an industry, and as a country, need to address is food independence. The United States of America can’t lose much more acreage out of food production if we are going to hold onto our food independence. When we are forced into a position where we have to import more food than we produce, we are no longer a superpower. Our top bargaining chip when it comes to world trade is not our energy, it’s not our technology. It’s our food. We must come up with some ways to incentivize folks to keep their land in food production for the masses. We must add some margin to these grassroots operations if we want these young people to stay involved in agriculture. Our lawmakers have never been more willing to help rural Americans than the present. They just need wellthought-out, common-sense solutions from a unified front. I absolutely believe that we, as one industry, can go to work and get this done. Let’s put our differences aside, come together and do something meaningful for ourselves and most importantly, the next generation!
