Meat And Poultry Resilience Act Could Benefit Washington Producers

Cattle producers across the Pacific Northwest are hopeful the Meat & Poultry Resilience Act will benefit operations locally. The legislation proposed by the Administration in early January, and put forward in Congress by Congresswoman Chellie Pingree looks to make a large investment in the supply chain to get processing up and running and to improve competitiveness. Ashley House, Executive Vice President of the Washington Cattlemen’s Association said their hope to get some of those dollars back to the Evergreen state.

“Perhaps how to get it to small- and mid-sized producers and make small and mid-sized processing plants.  So, a lot of your direct to consumer, custom cut, custom harvest operations can be viable with a little bit of federal dollars and federal investment.”

House noted the legislation also looks to address the monopolistic practices within the meat packing industry.

“What we’re trying to do as an Association is really look at the data and look at the experience of our cow/calf producers here in Washington State and protect their capitalistic rights to negotiate their own deal.”

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