Organization for Competitive Markets

PRESS RELEASE Organization for Competitive Markets P.O. Box 6486 Lincoln, NE 68506 www.competitivemarkets.com Contact: Fred Stokes 662 476 5568, cell 601 527 2459 tfredstokes@hughes.net August 6, 2012 KANSAS CITY, MO. — This week’s annual convention of the Organization for Competitive Markets will start out with a bang, as a bold new strategy to combat misuse of commodity check-off programs is unveiled at a pre-convention press conference Thursday afternoon. “We will…

Mike Callicrate, OCM Vice President, Presentation Part 1 of 2 at the Colorado Independent CattleGrowers Association’s 7th Annual Convention held 2012 July 13th — 15th in Lasalle, CO. View All Presentations Also presenting: Bill Bullard, R-CALF USA CEO David Wright, ICON President & Beef Board Member of Nebraska

At the 2009 OCM Annual Conference in St. Louis, Philip J. Weiser, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice (USDOJ) announced an unprecedented governmental initiative to bring competition and fair play to agricultural markets. For the first time in history, there was to be a joint and coordinated effort by USDOJ and U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to enforce antitrust laws and restore competition and fairness…

Lincoln, NE, June 18, 2012: The Organization for Competitive Markets expressed its full support for an amendment to the 2012 Farm Bill that would make all mandatory checkoff programs voluntary. The amendment, proposed by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), reads: “No program to promote and provide research and information for a particular agricultural commodity without reference to specific producers or brands (commonly known as a ‘check-off program’) shall be mandatory or…

By Alan Guebert In a striking, two-and-a-half page analysis that ran counter to department leanings, the chief economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture strongly objected to the department’s use of two outside studies that justified the massive retooling—essentially gutting—of the 2010 update of Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) rules to ensure fairness in livestock and poultry markets. The memo was one needle in a nearly 1,700-page haystack…

No doubt about it; we got trounced on the GIPSA Rule! We’ve been trounced repeatedly over the past dozen years or so in most all of our market reform efforts. On Capitol Hill and in the regulatory agencies, we have routinely been unsuccessful. In the courts, we would win with the jury but ultimately get reversed at the appellate level. The big agribusiness interests have prevailed. We know that our…

Click below to access OCM’s email/online newsletter. OCM's February 2012 Online Newsletter In an effort to efficiently publish information and articles, OCM has developed an online version of our newsletter. You can access OCM’s newsletters either through the mail, by email, on our website, and even on FACEBOOK! Our goal in the future it to provide as much information as possible in a paperless format while still providing access to…

Press Release Blast NCBA2 Click to read OCM’s press release regarding NCBA’s announcement that it intends to make eliminating the livestock title in the 2012 farm bill a priority.