R-CALF USA: COOL Litigation Supported by Producer Checkoff Dollars Billings, Mont. – At least three of the eight plaintiffs that filed a lawsuit July 8 against the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) final country of origin labeling (COOL) rule have already directly received and/or are attempting to directly receive producer checkoff dollars. According to a…

(art: Avidly) We Are All Aboard the Pequod By Chris Hedges, Truthdig July 13 The most prescient portrait of the American character and our ultimate fate as a species is found in Herman Melville’s "Moby Dick." Melville makes our murderous obsessions, our hubris, violent impulses, moral weakness and inevitable self-destruction visible in his chronicle of…

Meat industry sues USDA over latest COOL rule By Rita Jane Gabbett on 7/9/2013 Eight organizations representing the U.S. and Canadian meat and livestock industries filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to block a mandatory country-of-origin labeling (COOL) rule that USDA finalized in May. The lawsuit challenges the…

Letter from Langdon: Follow the Money 07/08/2013 China has already siphoned cash from Missouri’s coffers. Now the state Legislature seems intent on pouring more money into big, foreign ag by allowing increased international land sales and protecting nuisance industries. By Richard Oswald Photo by AFP – Getty Images A customer selects the pieces of pork,…

Wyoming Senator John B. Kendrick spoke the following words from the floor of the U.S. Senate in 1921, “It has been brought to such a high degree of concentration that it is dominated by few men. The big packers, so called, stand between hundreds of thousands of producers on one hand and millions of consumers…

June 28, 2013 Obituary: The Market Is Dead 1921-2013 By Mike Callicrate Funeral services will be held August 9th, 2013, in Kansas City, MO. It is with deepest regrets we announce that the market, age 92, passed away after a long illness. This was a terrible loss to livelihoods, rural communities and consumer choice. Survivors…

OCM Challenges Inspector General Refusal to Release Records by Mike Callicrate PRESS RELEASE Organization for Competitive Markets P.O. Box 6486 Lincoln, NE 68506 callicrate July 2, 2013 Group Appeals OIG’s Decision to Withhold Records Relating to Questionable Checkoff Audit Report The Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM) filed an administrative appeal today challenging the USDA Inspector…