United States Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said she will not allow two Brazilian meat packers to continue to dominate the industry, so she announced funding to help smaller packers compete.
“The fact that we’ve got two Brazilian-owned companies that are managing or running about half of our processing in the country is just unsustainable,” she said.
“So, we’ve got to get all of this back to America and get it back very quickly. Now, will this all be done in a year? No, but we’re setting up the infrastructure so that for the long term our farmers have what they need at the price that they need, so that they continue to pass down their farms and we can continue to be the world’s greatest source and breadbasket of food, fuel, and clothing for the future.””On Tuesday she announced the Strengthening Processing for U.S. Ranchers (SPUR) Program, which is to give up to $500 million to beef packers.
“Only U.S.-owned companies are eligible, and the so-called Big Four packers are excluded.”
JBS and National Beef/Marfrig are Brazilian-owned companies. They and two U.S. companies, Tyson and Cargill, account for 80 per cent of U.S. beef slaughter.
“On Wednesday, Rollins announced a separate $500 program to help finance “shovel-ready” fertilizer production or expansion — the Fertilizer Investment & Expansion for Long-Term Domestic Supply (FIELDS) Program — as well as regulatory streamlining to speed development in the industry.
“Understanding the immense pressure that the ag economy and especially row croppers are under right now, as fuel continues to come down, fertilizer continues to come down, labor continues to come down, we are on a really good trajectory,” Rollins said. “It’s just gonna take a little while to get those inputs down, as we’re opening up the markets around the world and we begin to solve for some of these very long-term structural issues.”