Evan Murray
2011 Buddy Jeffers Scholarship Winner – winning essay

The beef industry in the United States is tremendously important. The government has realized this and created agencies within the bureaucracy to regulate the beef industry for the benefit of American citizens. Among the most important of the agencies are the USDA, GIPSA, FDA and the EPA.
The USDA and GIPSA go hand in hand. The United States Department of Agriculture, or USDA, was founded in 1862. Abraham Lincoln started this program because he believed “Agriculture… (was) the largest interest of the nation.” He perceived it necessary for the government to protect and regulate perhaps the country’s most important production industry. The USDA’s vision is “to efficiently provide the integrated program delivery needed to lead a rapidly evolving food and agriculture system.” Their plan to accomplish this feat relies on several activities including expanding markets for agriculture products, expanding job opportunities, improving infrastructure in rural America, improving nutrition, and managing and protecting America’s lands. The Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, or GIPSA facilitates the marketing of agriculture products and promotes “competitive trading practices for ….consumers and American agriculture.” GIPSA is a sector of the USDA. It works “to ensure a productive and competitive global marketplace for U. S. agriculture products.” GIPSA conducts major investigations involving legal issues of agriculture practices, ensures accurate measuring in packing, monitors market performance, and promotes low costs and competition, among many other activities.
Another government agency that regulates the livestock/beef industry is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the FDA. The FDA was built in to the bureaucracy in 1906 to protect public health among Americans. The FDA is responsible for doing so by “assuring safety, efficacy and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, medical devices, our nation’s food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation.” The FDA also helps speed innovation in drugs and medicines to me more effective, safer, and more affordable to the American public. The FDA’s role is important in beef production. They regulate the drugs and amount of drugs given to our cattle and work to improve the drugs that are circulated through the system. The FDA is so important because the trust and responsibility we citizens give to them affects us; being as the substance injected into our cattle returns to us as our beef in the kitchen.
The final large agency is the EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency, or the EPA, was formed in 1970. Its purpose is “to protect human health and the environment.” Many objectives of the EPA include efforts to reduce environmental risk, making sure federal laws protect health among humans and animals fairly, all parts of society have access to information to participate in managing health and environmental risk, and making communities and ecosystems diverse and productive. The EPA does this by implementing regulations on environmental laws enforced by congress. They set standards and regulations that are made known to companies around the country.
Each mission in the agencies listed above is to keep citizens in the U.S. healthy. Therefore, the agencies have to create policies and regulations to do so. All legislation and public policy is to make people follow the rules that these agencies believe will lead citizens in the right direction, because they know there will always be individuals and companies trying to “cut corners.” In essence, government organizations create these rules for the well being of each resident. All play a vital role in beef production. This being said, I believe all of the listed institutions have created policies that hamper production. These government agencies are a liability to the industry. Being as these organizations are funded by the federal government and lobbyists, many times the presented policies are either more consumer friendly or more producers friendly.
One modern example of the federal government inhibiting the producer is happening in Texas right now. Since the beginning of the wildfire season, Texas has responded to 7,807 fires. These fires are cutting through farm and ranch land in Texas, the largest beef producing state in the nation. Governor Perry has asked Washington for disaster relief funds to be issued, but none have been. Out of 254 counties, 252 have been affected by the wildfires.  This is an extreme burden to producers. Policy makers tend to lack hands-on experience with beef production, and it shows in times like these. Nearly two million acres have been burned. With the acreage comes destroyed vegetation, ash-filled air, millions of gallons of water to stop the fire, and thousands of heads of cattle lost. In turn, this is less money and fewer resources to the people that provide beef to our country and our world. The fact that in the 2008 presidential election, Texas handed the Obama Administration its largest setback giving McCain more votes than any other state may have lasting effects. Politicians must “look out” for their constituencies first and foremost, and this sometimes impedes production.
Overall, lack of understanding by policy makers creates challenges for producers from pasture to plate. When it is clearly recognized that Agriculture fuels our world, the government and government agencies will become solely an asset, and less of a liability to the livestock/beef industry.