For Immediate Release: May 28, 2026
Contact: R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard
Phone: 406-252-2516; r-calfusa@r-calfusa.com
Please find below R-CALF USA’s weekly opinion/commentary that discusses how, for nearly 50 years, multinational meatpackers have shaped the legal and regulatory framework within which the cattle and sheep industries operate. It is in three formats: written, audio and video. Anyone is welcome to use it for broadcasting or reporting.
Farm Bill: Progress or More of the Same?
Commentary by Bill Bullard, CEO, R-CALF USA
We typically measure the current state of our livestock industries by comparing them to conditions that existed a bit over a generation ago, in 1980, and we evaluate the industry trends that have materialized since then.
Several events occurred in the 1980s that profoundly influenced the trajectories of our livestock industries. In the early ‘80s, our nation faced an agricultural recession marked by a severe economic cost/price squeeze that forced many livestock producers out of business. The ‘80s also marked the beginning of the deregulation era that signaled an end to aggressive antitrust enforcement and allowed meatpackers to begin owning, controlling and feeding livestock long before slaughter. And the ‘80s triggered what USDA called “merger mania,” a condition marked by meatpacker mergers and acquisitions that resulted in only a handful of multinational meatpackers dominating the marketplace.
Every five years, Congress goes about the task of writing a farm bill to address America’s food security needs by implementing reforms that supposedly ensure America’s farmers and ranchers can continue producing an abundant and affordable supply of wholesome food.
Since the 1981 Farm Bill, Congress has progressively amended each successive farm bill, thereby creating and recreating a legal framework within which each of our agricultural sectors operates – from crop farmers to livestock farmers and ranchers to dairy farmers.
Of course, after each successive farm bill is enacted, the administration begins its rulemaking processes to write regulations for which to implement the farm bill’s statutory requirements. Therefore, each successive farm bill redefines both the legal and regulatory framework within which each of our agricultural sectors functions. Our focus today is on the grazing livestock sector, our nation’s cattle and sheep industries.
Since the 1981 Farm Bill, Congress has watched as our U.S. cattle and sheep industries shrank – we’ve lost 52% of our nation’s beef cattle operations and more than 60% of our nation’s commercial sheep operations.
If Congress knew that our cattle and sheep industries were shrinking more and more each time they sat down to write a new farm bill, why didn’t they reform the livestock sector’s legal and regulatory framework to reverse its downward trajectory?
The answer is unsurprising. The ‘80s deregulation era marked a hands-off approach to the marketing practices of meatpackers and processors, which was a monumental shift from past public policies. That shift allowed the largest of corporations to maximize control over their respective supply chains. It resulted in a legal and regulatory framework that minimized what the multinational corporations viewed as government infringement on their right to conduct business as they saw fit in their quest to maximize profits.
In other words, they got what they wanted in the ‘80s, and since then they’ve fought to maintain the status quo. They have since transformed their economic power – gained from their consolidation and concentration of the markets – into political power, gained from infiltrating producer groups such as the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and National Pork Producers Council and, of course, through their financial contributions to the political process.
Since the ‘80s, the multinational meatpackers and processors augmented the marketplace deregulation achieved in the ‘80s with trade deregulation achieved in the ‘90s, which afforded them with increased access to cheaper inputs from around the world.
For going on 50 years, the multinational meatpackers and processors, and now including their allied producer groups, have been hugely successful in maintaining a legal and regulatory framework for the grazing livestock sector that has solidified their control over the sector. This has allowed them to maximize their profits, all while hundreds of thousands of independent livestock producers, their livestock and their markets were shrinking.
The 2026 Farm Bill marks a new opportunity for Congress to take a bold step to upset the status quo by rebalancing the grazing livestock sector’s legal and regulatory framework in a way that levels the playing field between independent livestock producers and the dominant multinational meatpackers, processors and their allied lobbying groups.
This won’t be easy. Those influential forces will fight vehemently to prevent needed market transparency, as would occur if the new farm bill reinstates mandatory country-of-origin labeling. They’ll fight against livestock procurement reforms that would reinstate competition as the determinant of livestock prices. They’ll fight against reform of the beef checkoff program that has helped them maintain the status quo. And they’ll fight against trade reforms that can help incentivize the rebuilding of our diminished grazing livestock herds.
Congress can upset the status quo in the 2026 Farm Bill, but we must help them. Now is the time to call your U.S. senators. Tell them to be bold.
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R-CALF USA’s weekly opinion/commentary educates and informs both consumers and producers about timely issues important to the U.S. cattle and sheep industries and rural America.
Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA) is the largest producer-only trade association in the United States. It is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle and sheep industries. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com or call 406-252-2516.