The USDA announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to a partnership with some 31 state attorney generals – plus the AG of the District of Colombia – to enhance food and agricultural competition across the state and national market places.
Under this new Agricultural Competition Partnership, the USDA is investing in opportunities to combine state and federal authorities, expertise, and market insights. The agency is also leveraging funds to support complex cases and to jointly support research and academic work for use in future cases.
Some focuses of the cooperation include: Anticompetitive market structures and practices, as well as price gouging and other anti-consumer practices, in food, retail, meat and poultry processing, and other agriculture industries, a lack of choices for consumers and producers; conflicts of interest, misuse of intellectual property, and anticompetitive barriers across the food and agriculture supply chains, such as in seed markets.
Specifically, this initiative is designed to enhance the capacity of state attorneys general to conduct on-the-ground assessments of competition and consumer issues, enhance coordination between federal and state agriculture and competition authorities, create new and more independent research programs, and ultimately result in fairer and competitive markets and more resilient supply chains.
