Meat Industry Group Asks Trump To Deregulate Meatpacking and Factory Farms
Amid a deregulatory blitz, trade group pushes for rollback on environmental regulations, worker protections and food safety.
It should come as no surprise that during President Trump’s first few weeks in office, his priority has been to deregulate. In fact, on January 31, the Trump White House announced a de-regulatory blitz, requiring that “whenever an agency promulgates a new rule, regulation, or guidance, it must identify at least 10 existing rules, regulations, or guidance documents to be repealed.”
In light of this executive order, industry groups are taking notice. The Meat Institute, a meat lobbying group, penned a letter to Trump asking him to loosen the guardrails:
The Clean Water Act, salmonella inspections and equity in the Packers and Stockyards Act are just a few of the regulations that the industry lobbying group the Meat Institute, formerly known as the North American Meat Institute, is calling for the Trump administration to pull back.
On January 27, Meat Institute president Julie Anna Potts penned a letter to the White House providing the new administration with “strategies to reduce burdensome regulations and address meat prices for consumers.” In the letter, Potts blames the previous administration for inflation, which she claims was caused by increased regulation in the food industry. Potts also targets increased worker protections against discrimination, which she claims are part of diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
“Based on what they propose, the path to lower food prices is exploiting child labor and engaging in sharecropping production models,” Austin Frerick, antitrust expert and author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry, tells Sentient. “They’re grab-bagging words in the moment to fit their deregulatory race to the bottom.”
P.S., I’ll be talking about this article on Iowa Public Radio’s River to River today at noon CT. Tune in!
P.P.S., my beat is factory farming. Amidst the noise, I’ll be doing my best to keep reporting on how this new administration is going to impact our food system. I use Signal for tips, message me there at ninaelkadi.64.
When I wrote the history of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) I was astonished by the stories of how few inspectors oversee how many millions of animals a day or week. They used to be able to check each animal. Now they just watch hundreds go by and hope to catch one lame one. Eating industrial meat is dangerous! Stick with farmers you know.
Their own families are eating the food that is being handled improperly and they don’t seem to care.