‘GIPSA-Lite’ Just Days Away

Look for a scaled-back version of the Agriculture Department’s controversial GIPSA rule to be issued by Friday. The farm policy newsletter Agri-Pulse said Wednesday that the Office of Management and Budget has signed off on the regulation, clearing the way for publication in the Federal Register “by the end of the week.”

The first draft of the regulation, made public in mid-2010, triggered an avalanche of criticism from livestock groups, including NPPC, and their congressional allies. In reaction, USDA last month jettisoned some of the regulation’s key provisions, including a ban on packer-to-packer livestock sales. A week or two later Congress blocked the department from spending money to implement much of the regulation. The restrictions were included in the House-Senate conference report on an annual spending bill for USDA and other agencies, which has now been signed into law.

The scaled-back regulation is expected to include four of the five mandates that Congress put in the 2008 farm bill. Two of those apply only to poultry production; the other two deal with requiring a capital investment under a contract and determining what constitutes fair use of arbitration. Expected to be left out of the new rule is a provision setting criteria for what constitutes an “undue” preference or advantage for producers.