U.S. Ranchers Offered Aid as Biden Reserves Largest Protections for Corporate Meatpackers

President Joe Biden is offering federal aid in the form of a $1 billion package to ranchers, farmers, and independent processors even as he reserves the largest protections for the four meatpacking corporations that dominate the market.

During a roundtable meeting on Monday, Biden announced that his administration will spend about a billion from the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, offering grants to aid independent processors, reviewing anti-competitive practices in the meat industry, and boosting meatpacking capacity.

While Biden noted that “four big corporations control more than half the markets in beef, pork, and poultry,” the administration is seemingly doing little to beat back the consolidated corporate power that Tyson Foods, Cargill, the National Beef Packing Company, and JBS have over the meatpacking industry.

The four meatpacking conglomerates once owned 35 percent of the market. Today, their share of the market stands at 85 percent as presidential administrations and Congress have been unwilling to step in with antitrust maneuvers, once readily used to break up corporate monopolies.- READ MORE