AUGUST 3, 2023:
Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) recently said, “We’re getting the heck beat out of us” on the Ending Agriculture Trade Suppression Act.
While Marshall led the Senate introduction, U.S. Representative Ashley Hinson (R-IA) introduced a companion bill in the House. For two months, members of the Organization for Competitive Markets, Competitive Markets Action, the Kansas Cattlemen’s Association, and several other groups and organizations have declared their opposition to the EATS Act. The groups call the measure “an assault on state’s rights, and a gift to Chinese pork conglomerates like Smithfield.” They are determined to prevent the measure from marginalizing American family farmers and “opening the floodgates” to China’s takeover of American agriculture. Enacting the EATS Act via the farm bill would eliminate hundreds of state agricultural laws and pave the way for even more foreign intrusion without guardrails. OCM and CMA are spearheading an anti-EATS Act campaign that began in June 2023.
JULY 31, 2023:
The Organization for Competitive Markets and the Competitive Markets Action led several organizations on a trip to Capitol Hill to oppose the EATS Act. The groups say the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act via the farm bill would eliminate hundreds of state agricultural laws, effectively paving the way for even more foreign intrusion without safety measures in place.
The absence of these rules, especially those that support family farms and ranches, would mean Chinese corporations like Smithfield Foods could easily expand into all 50 states. The groups support the OFF Act, or “Opportunities for Fairness in Farming.”
The OFF Act would create a system of checks and balances within USDA’s Commodity Checkoff Programs, prohibit checkoffs from utilizing taxpayer dollars to lobby against farmers’ best interests and prohibit disparagement of one product by another. The groups say that practice has long allowed the federal government to pick winners and losers in the marketplace.
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