WASHINGTON (KELO.com) — United States Senators from South Dakota and Minnesota launched a bipartisan, nationwide effort this week to protect consumers and cattlemen from what they call “anti-competitive practices in the beef processing market.”
South Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds says he and Minnesota Democratic Senator Tina Smith are inviting Members of Congress to join them in signing an open letter to the US Department of Justice.
Rounds says they’re asking DOJ to examine whether the control large meatpackers have over the beef processing market violates US antitrust laws and principles of fair competition.
Rounds says consumers should be standing alongside cattle producers in the request to get more information about how the current cattle market is operating.
Rounds says he and Smith encourage state leaders and organizations to join them in asking for the DOJ investigation.
Meanwhile, the North American Meat Institute is defending its members against the allegations of wrongdoing in the cattle market. Spokesperson Sarah Little told the Hagstrom Report USDA analyzed the effects of the 2019 Holcomb facility fire and the pandemic in July 2020. She says they found no wrongdoing and confirmed the disruption in the beef markets was due to devastating and unprecedented “black swan” events.
So far, at least two cattle groups with South Dakota members are applauding the request for a DOJ investigation.
R-CALF USA has launched a nationwide, 10-day campaign to get 200 members of the US Senate and US House to join Rounds and Smith by adding their name to the bipartisan letter.
South Dakota Stock Growers Association president Scott Edoff says guys are going completely out of business every day, and more are running out of time. He says cattle producers are taking big losses while “the big four packers are laughing all the way to the bank.”
To read the letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, click here.
(Jody Heemstra, DRG News, contributed this report.)
