Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) says the only option to move forward with a bill to reform cattle markets is through the farm bill. Grassley has long supported legislation such as the Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency Act, however, he says the farm bill is the only option for the legislation.
Grassley says, “It’s something that we would try to do if we had markup in the Senate Ag Committee, it’s something I would try to do, but since we aren’t having that markup, that’s out of the question. We’ll never get that bill up separately.”
Grassley says it is important legislation for family farmers. He says, “It’s an important enough thing, you know, you’re talking about breaking up the monopoly of the Big Four meat packers and what they’re doing to the family farmer, making it a difficult to market on a fair basis, that it’s very important from an antitrust standpoint, that we do things like that.”
Story courtesy of the NAFB News Service