COWBOYS VERSUS MEATPACKERS: THE LAST ROUNDUP - Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America - page 99

all of its goals, the massive piece of legislation included a provision that directed the little-known USDA
department GIPSA to write rules for enforcing the 1921 law.
GIPSA's mission, as part of the USDA's Marketing and Regulatory Program, is to ensure a competitive
marketplace for the benefit of American agriculture and consumers. However, the agency has been very
lax in executing its mission, because agribusiness wields its enormous economic and political power to in-
timidate the political appointees at USDA and the career staff that report to them.
In defiance of the meatpacking industry, President Obama promised during his first campaign that, if
elected, he would help fix the rules that allow the meat industry to take advantage of the people who raise
the animals Americans eat. Subsequently, the meatpackers applied political pressure on President Obama
and on members of Congress to prevent the rules that emerged from stopping noncompetitive practices,
manipulating the livestock market, and abusing poultry growers through unfair contracts.
In May 2011, 147 members of Congress proved once again that the meat industry can buy public policy.
The trade associations for Big Meat—major campaign contributors in congressional races—wrote to Sec-
retary Vilsack in an effort aimed at obstructing the GIPSA rules. The letter, initiated by Representative Jim
Costa, a Democrat from the Central Valley of California, was typical of the sabotage routinely directed at
antitrust laws. The letter asked for Vilsack's “prompt response to the concerns that have previously been
raised on this matter” and his “commitment to conduct a more thorough economic analysis.” 21
Unfortunately, while the administration got off to a good start in keeping its promise, the president
lacked the courage to move forward rules that would address the market manipulation and uncompetitive
behavior of the meatpackers and capitulated to industry pressure. In the winter of 2011, toothless rules
were finalized that will do little to curb the market power of the meat industry.
No one knows better the lengths to which the food industries will go to get their way than Dudley
Butler, the former administrator of GIPSA, who was appointed to the office by President Obama. Soon
after the administration's surrender to the meat industry, Butler resigned. He is a Mississippi trial lawyer
and rancher who has represented contract poultry growers in disputes with the chicken titans, and he made
no bones about his intention to protect smaller growers against agribusiness. He was attacked viciously
and repeatedly by the meatpackers, the industry trade association, and their lobbyists during the two-year
process of investigating and writing the rules.
One of the ferocious attacks on Butler was for speaking at a 2009 meeting of the OCM, an organization
focused on enforcing antitrust law and establishing competitive markets. As John Howell, the publisher of
Butler's hometown Missisippi paper The Panolian , wrote:
Also not surprising have been the attacks from the farming corporatocracy. “GIPSA's J. Dudley Butler threatens
U. S. Livestock Production,” an August 2010 headline in Beef Magazine stated. The story that followed likened
him to a “fox guarding the henhouse.” Butler has also undergone pummeling in hearings before the House Agri-
culture Committee whose members enjoy the largesse of campaign donations from the beef and meatpacking
industry. He has been derogatorily described as a “notorious plaintiff's attorney,” and “one of the 'Johnnie Co-
chrans' of ag law” in an Internet publication. 22
Beef Magazine , a pro-industry trade journal, used a partial response to an audience member's question
at the OCM meeting to make it seem as if Butler was intending to encourage more lawsuits against the
meatpacking industry with the GIPSA rules. R-CALF CEO Bill Bullard later called the beef trade journal
out: “Meatpackers' apologists, some of whom claim to be journalists, are openly engaged in an unethic-
al smear campaign targeted at Dudley Butler. . . . The purpose of the proposed GIPSA rule is to prevent
monopolistic meatpackers from capturing control of the livestock supply chain.” Fred Stokes, former ex-
ecutive director of OCM, charged that Butler's comments at the meeting were taken out of context and