Easier Beef Movement
May Fall To Politics

HURON, S.D. —(AP)— Politics may be the greatest threat to proposed legislation repealing the federal prohibition on interstate shipments of meat and poultry from state-inspected processing companies, says South Dakota Agriculture Secretary Dean Anderson.

"All of my efforts have been directed to keeping this on a nonpartisan political basis," Anderson said. "We have every segment of the state's agriculture industry on our side. But I'm disappointed that politics are being brought into this issue."

Anderson will be part of a panel discussing increasing domestic and international marketing opportunities for U.S. beef at the Beef States Summit in Omaha, Neb., this week.

Anderson is optimistic that legislation supported by U.S. Sen. Larry Pressler, R-S.D., and Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah will help drop the transportation restrictions.

But while Congress could take up the bill in September, Anderson said this year's elections could be a problem.

"If it doesn't happen prior to the election, I see it fading into the future again," he said. "We can't afford that at a time when we are seeing lost economic opportunity in South Dakota in the beef industry."

The transportation issue came out of a report prepared by a committee earlier this year studying meatpacker concentration.

Anderson said lifting the prohibition could help diversify the slaughter industry.

"It would be one step, but it is not the answer to the whole problem of captive supply that packers are using in controlling the markets," he said. "My question is, ‘Why hasn't it happened?’"