Dive Brief:
- After two years of delay, the House passed a new five-year Farm Bill, changing parts of the American food-production process. The bill, which now moves to the Senate where passage is a near-certainty, is expected to save about $16.6 billion.
- Among the big winners in the bill are small dairy farmers, who are expected to pay less for production insurance, and Florida citrus growers, who will see an influx of funds to combat citrus greening.
- Perhaps the biggest losers in the process are meat processors. They failed in their attempt to roll back country-of-origin-label (COOL) requirements in the legislation.
Dive Insight:
The best news in the 2013 Farm Bill is that it has done what has seemed impossible for many years — eliminate the direct cash subsidies to farmers.
But while nearly everyone is pleased to see subsidies disappear, not everyone is pleased to see the COOL rules are here to stay.
We're all for transparency in food labels. And although the COOL rules are likely to cause significant headaches for the U.S. in the free-trade arena, and will certainly increase costs for meat processors, we accept that consumers want more information about their food.
This will, however, alter the meat landscape. We expect to see more moves like the one Tyson made, in which it stopped buying slaughter-ready cattle in Canada.
