The United States federal government has dumped an agency that was
The federal government has dumped an agency that was established in 2023 to tackle anti-competitive behaviours in the food industry.
It was established when Joe Biden was president and inflation was running hot.
Now that Donald Trump is president many of Biden’s initiatives have been reversed.
The Agricultural Competition Partnership (ACP) provided funding and collaboration among the federal agriculture and attorneys general from 31 states to tackle anticompetitive behaviour such as price gouging, market structure barriers and conflicts of interest that can distort margins for family farms and raise consumer prices.
Through the ACP, USDA had provided about $15 million in funding and technical support to under-resourced state AG offices, enhancing their ability to collaborate on on-the-ground competition and consumer protection actions.
Politicians said this partnership helped build coordination between federal and state authorities and supported research into competition issues across grocery, processing and other agrifood markets.
In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, a group of federal politicians expressed serious concern that abandoning the ACP will worsen consolidation trends in agriculture — trends they say have “decreased margins for family farmers … increased prices for consumers … and reduced choice and quality in the marketplace”.
The group demanded clarity on USDA’s plans for competition enforcement and whether the department plans to continue working with state AGs or shift responsibility elsewhere.
