He’s a western Illinois cattle and hog producer and also has a feed yard. He’s Steve Foglesong, President of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. I spoke with Steve today for our series on the proposed GIPSA rule making. The picture is Steve during a press conference at this summer’s Cattle Industry Conference.

He says that when you read the proposed rule the first time it makes you say, “Yeah, that’s really good.” But he goes on to say that when you step back and analyze it you realize how broad it is and that it includes things that beef and pork producers have fought against for years. Then Steve says, “There are some very good pieces that are in this rule. The poultry part is pretty good and there’s some other stuff in there about fairness and things like that but in its entirety this thing because it is so broad and so far reaching is a bad rule because it puts the government in charge of the market place. Let’s take it apart, let’s get rid of this and then bring some pieces of it up one at a time and I think we can deal with some of those and do all the producers some good that way.”

Steve also talks about the unintended consequences of the rule in its proposed form. One of them is his concern about the packers telling producers that they won’t accept the liability called for in the proposed rule when it comes to special pricing contracts. “They’ll just level the playing field and pay a standard price for all cattle irrespective of quality. Ultimately it’s going to be consumers that will suffer because consumers have driven us into this quality situation.”

Listen to my interview with Steve here: Steve Foglesong Interview

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the National Pork Producers Association are working to inform producers about the potential consequences of the proposed rule and encouraging them to make comments.