WASHINGTON — The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed a new rule to address competition issues for poultry growers and farmers on June 3. The Poultry Grower Payment Systems and Capital Improvement Systems rule is the third in a suite of Packers and Stockyards Act rules created to foster fairer markets.

“Poultry growers deserve a fair shake, and consumers deserve fair prices,” said Andy Green, USDA senior advisor for fair and competitive markets. “This proposed rule is intended to provide growers with a clear base price in contracts, a contracting partner that designs and operates any comparisons fairly, and access to the information that growers — and USDA — need to identify and halt coercive investment demands before growers take on large debts.”

The proposed rule seeks to address abuses in relation to grower ranking payment systems and additional capital investment requirements that poultry companies commonly ask of their contract growers for broiler chicken.

If finalized, the rule would prohibit deductions from the base price in contracts for broiler chicken growers, permitting only bonuses for performance. It would provide tools for growers to identify risks that may arise on capital improvement practices as well as enhance USDA’s ability to enforce prohibitions on unfair capital improvement practices. Additionally, the rule would establish a duty of fair comparison to ensure grower tournaments are conducted reasonably and equitably so as not to disadvantage specific growers.

An unofficial version of the rule can be found on the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service site. The official proposed rule will be published in the Federal Register at a later date. Once it is published in the Federal Register, the public will have 60 days to comment on the rule.

In response to the initial announcement of the rule, the National Chicken Council (NCC) issued a statement.

“These are solutions in search of problems that do not exist,” said NCC President Mike Brown. “This is the latest example of the Biden administration racing to impose its anti-business regulatory agenda ahead of November’s election. This rule — which Congress never asked for — will lead to rigid, one-size-fits-all requirements on chicken growing contracts that would stifle innovation, lead to higher costs for consumers, decrease competition and cost jobs by driving some of the best farmers out of the chicken business. The administration likes to deflect the blame at our country’s food producers as the reason for high grocery prices, instead of looking in the mirror at their failed policies and increased regulation. We look forward to reviewing the rule in its entirety and expressing our strong opposition in comments.”

In addition to the announcement of the Poultry Grower Payment Systems and Capital Improvement Systems rule, USDA plans to launch a new data visualization tool, the Livestock Mandatory Reporting (LMR) Live Cattle Data Dashboard. The tool is designed to provide easy access to LMR live cattle market information. Public access to the dashboard will be available in the summer, USDA said.