Now factor in a new head cattle market cop who is an activist trial lawyer with a practice devoted largely to agricultural contracts. Fowl contracts, to be specific.
Because that’s exactly what the resume of J. Dudley Butler, the new head of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration indicates he is. He was, recalls Fred Stokes, former president and current executive vice president of the Organization for Competitive Markets, among those at the OCM’s first meeting back in 1997.
In fact, Stokes and others credit Butler with a key role in getting Congress to do away with involuntary arbitration contracts in the poultry industry. Disgruntled growers had long complained about those contracts, arguing “integrators” use them to protect themselves from jury trials when the abuse the growers. (Trial lawyers didn’t like that “no trial” stuff much, either.)
This is going to be interesting. Butler is not a guy who, by reputation at least, seems to have little patience with mainstream agricultural business practices. Before his company Web site was taken down, his list of “agricultural links” included neither the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association nor the American Farm Bureau. OCM was there. As was R-CALF and a host of “sustainable” and “family” farm organizations.
It’s been years since most us paid much attention to GIPSA. The agency mostly tells rogue cattle buyers and broke auctions they must close barn doors after horses are out. And promise not to leave the doors open again.
It’s been years since the agency policy had much impact on the way we do business.
But overlay Mr. Butler’s politics onto the personality of a trial lawyer, and there may be reason Mr. Butler’s colleagues on the left side are so enthusiastic about his new job.
Randy Stevenson, current president and another founding member of OCM,says he expects to see Butler bring the “interests of producers” back into the picture. Stevenson says the Bushies at GIPSA were just there to protect packers from the Packers and Stockyards law.
He says it will take time for Butler to swing GIPSA’s bow, but he says Butler has the instincts to do it. Just how much change he can bring is Stevenson’s question.
Jess Peterson, executive vice president of the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (another outfit not on the Butler Law Firm list of links) says he worked with Butler on several legislative efforts and says, “He is certainly on the side of the producer.”
Peterson predicts “a much more aggressive” approach to the P&S law in the years ahead.