Rounds Meets with South Dakota Cattle Producer Before Senate Ag Committee Hearing

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) yesterday met with St. Onge producer and vice president of the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, Justin Tupper.

The two discussed anticompetitive practices in the cattle industry and Tupper’s upcoming testimony before the Senate Agriculture Committee. The Committee is holding a hearing to examine price transparency in cattle markets today at 2:30PM ET/1:30PM CT/12:30PM MT.

“Justin Tupper is a tremendous advocate for the cattle industry,” Rounds said. “I enjoyed a chance to visit with him and to hear about his remarks for the Ag Committee. It’s long past time for Congress to focus on the anticompetitive practices in the cattle industry that are running independent cattle producers out of business. I hope this hearing will give us greater traction on several pieces of legislation I’ve introduced to protect cattlemen and consumers.”

South Dakota producer Justin Tupper and Sen. Mike Rounds share a meal prior to Tupper’s appearance in front of the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Background:

Since he was elected to the Senate, Sen. Rounds has worked to provide solutions to the problems faced by independent cattle producers and beef consumers. Most recently, he:

• Introduced the Meat Packing Special Investigator Act with Sens. Tester and Grassley to give the U.S. Department of Agriculture the tools to investigate anticompetitive practices in the cattle market.
• Led a group of 26 colleagues with Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) in calling on the attorney general to investigate the meatpacking industry to determine if antitrust violations exist.
• Addressed cattle producers during a virtual town hall focused on meatpacker concentration in the cattle industry.
• Reintroduced legislation with Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) to allow meat and poultry products inspected by state Meat and Poultry Inspection (MPI) programs to be sold across state lines.
• Introduced bipartisan legislation to foster more competitive cattle markets by requiring that a minimum of 50 percent of a meatpacker’s weekly volume of cattle purchases take place on the open or spot market.
• Introduced legislation which would outlaw foreign beef from being labeled as a “Product of the U.S.A.” and make certain that label only goes on beef and beef products exclusively derived from animals born, raised and slaughtered here in the United States.

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