Six months later, no complaints on revised livestock law

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Some livestock farmers were in an uproar last year when a state price discrimination law took effect with an unexpected consequence.

Meat packers, fearful of discrimination lawsuits, stopped paying cash based on the weight of cattle and hogs and shifted to a quality-of-meat rate that often remained constant even if market prices rose.

Some farmers said they were losing money, as well as an age-old option for selling their livestock.

So legislators, in a September special session, softened the price discrimination law to zap most of its effects and entice packers back into the cash markets.

Now, more than six months since Gov. Bob Holden signed the revised law, the complaints have stopped -- an apparent indication things are once again well for livestock farmers.

The Department of Agriculture, which under the revised law is to handle any price discrimination allegations, hasn't had a single complaint since the changes took effect last fall, said Loyd Wilson, coordinator of the department's domestic marketing program.

Similarly, no one has commented on the department's proposed rule change reflecting the revised law, Wilson said Friday. A 30-day public comment period ended Sunday and a routine public hearing was scheduled for today.

At the Missouri Farm Bureau, a farmers' insurance and interest group, the phones rang frequent with complaints about the original price discrimination law.

"I hear no complaints from our folks now," said Kelly Smith, the Farm Bureau's director of marketing and commodities.

State legislators, too, say the grumbling has subsided.

"We're getting along very well," said Sen. John Cauthorn, R-Mexico, one of the sponsors of the revisions and a past president of the Missouri Cattleman's Association. "I haven't heard any complaints in the country."

A hard-to-describe feeling

But that's not to say that everything is entirely as it was before May 14, 2001, when the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the state price discrimination law that allowed farmers to sue packers for triple damages.

When packers quickly pulled out of Missouri's cash markets, some farmers near the state border started selling their livestock elsewhere, such as Kansas or Nebraska.

A few farmers continue to do so, said Ron Plain, a professor in Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Plus, there is a hard-to-describe feeling among some Missouri livestock farmers that things aren't quite as they were before the original price discrimination law.

Joe Kagay, for one, thinks the price he gets is just slightly below the top price being offered in Nebraska.

"I just don't feel like we ever quite came up to where we were before, and I just don't know quite why exactly," said Kagay, who farms in northwestern Missouri's DeKalb County.

Plain estimates that Missouri livestock farmers lost as much as $4 million during the four months the original price discrimination law was in effect.

The revised law is to expire Dec. 31, leaving the state without any livestock price discrimination law.

There has been no attempt in the current legislative session to extend that expiration date. But House Speaker Jim Kreider, who is running for the Senate, says he would pursue re-enactment of a price discrimination law if elected.

Kreider has accused big packing companies of using the old discrimination law as an excuse to pay farmers less.

"The small family farmers need some protections from these multinational monopolies," said Kreider, D-Nixa. "I'm still very concerned about it."