December 10, 2010 The final Agriculture and Antitrust Enforcement Issues in Our 21st Century Economy workshop put on by the USDA and the Department of Justice was held December 08, 2010, in Washington, DC. This last workshop, entitled Margins, was to “look at the discrepancies between the prices received by farmers and the prices paid by consumers.” Prior workshops were Issues of Concern to Farmers, Poultry Industry, Dairy Industry, and Livestock Industry.
Opening remarks and discussions can be heard on in the following video. Having attended all the workshops, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack had this to say,
“In these workshops and my travels across the country, a number of themes have emerged. Producers want to have, or maintain, marketing options. They want transparency. They want access to markets. They have fewer buyers with whom to do business, and they struggle with debt and face challenges accessing capital. And lastly, they just want to be treated fairly and with respect.”
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