by Jordan Berry, NALC Research Fellow, and Elizabeth Rumley, Senior Staff Attorney
In 1921, Congress enacted the Packers and Stockyards Act (PSA) in response to concerns that a small group of meat packers exercised extensive controls over livestock markets. More than a century later, the Act remains the principal federal law governing fair trade practices, financial integrity, and competition in the livestock, meat, and poultry industries. Its broad language has allowed the law to endure as agricultural markets have changed, but that same language has produced recurring disputes over the balance between fair markets and free markets. Those disputes became a focus of USDA rulemaking during the Biden administration and are again shifting under the second Trump administration.
History of the Act
The PSA arose during a period of rapid consolidation in the meatpacking industry. A Federal Trade Commission investigation found that five companies held substantial power over slaughter, stockyards, transportation, distribution, and related food businesses. While the Department of Justice obtained a consent decree against the companies in 1920, Congress concluded that existing antitrust laws and the decree did not provide sufficient protection for livestock markets. After its passage, President Warren G. Harding signed the Packers and Stockyards Act on August 15, 1921. After a challenge to the law, the Supreme Court upheld the PSA the following year, describing livestock commerce as a continuous stream moving from farms and ranches through stockyards and packing plants to consumers.
The Act placed packers and major public stockyards under federal oversight and prohibited several categories of conduct. Section 202 makes it unlawful for packers, swine contractors, and live poultry dealers to engage in unfair, unjustly discriminatory, or deceptive practices; give an undue or unreasonable preference or advantage; manipulate or control prices; create a monopoly; restrain commerce; or conspire to accomplish those results. Other provisions regulate stockyard owners, market agencies, and livestock dealers. The law also addresses the financial side of livestock marketing through registration, bonding, recordkeeping, prompt-payment requirements, and statutory trusts that protect unpaid sellers when certain regulated businesses fail.
Protections in the Act have expanded as livestock and poultry production has evolved. Amendments adopted in 1976 increased financial protections for livestock sellers and established a statutory trust for livestock purchased by packers. Congress extended important protections to poultry growers and sellers in 1987 and later addressed swine production contracts and poultry-growing arrangements. The 2008 Farm Bill added protections concerning contract cancellation, arbitration, venue, and disclosure of possible capital-investment requirements. More recently, in 2020, Congress established a similar statutory trust for livestock sold to dealers. Since then, both the Biden and the Trump administrations have taken regulatory action to address issues of importance to their administration.
Biden Administration Changes
In July of 2021, President Biden signed an executive order focusing on competition. It directed USDA to strengthen enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act and consider rules addressing unfair practices, retaliation, poultry contracting, and the judicial requirement to demonstrate harm to competition. USDA ultimately finalized three major rules under that initiative. The rules did not amend the PSA itself. Instead, they added regulatory standards intended to explain how USDA would apply the Act to particular conduct in livestock and poultry markets.
For example, in 2023 USDA finalized regulations explaining how livestock sellers and poultry growers preserve their rights under the Act’s statutory trusts. The rule outlined procedures and timelines under which an unpaid cash seller must notify the livestock dealer and USDA of the seller’s intent to preserve trust benefits, as well as recordkeeping and other requirements for credit sales. The other PSA rules, however, were more specific to poultry.
In today’s industry, poultry growers commonly contract with an “integrator,” which is a company that supplies chicks, feed, and veterinary inputs. The grower, on the other hand, supplies the labor and houses used to raise the birds. Compensation for raising birds is typically adjusted through a ranking or “tournament” system that compares growers’ performance to others around them.
The first Biden rule, called the Transparency in Poultry Grower Contracting and Tournaments rule, was proposed in June 2022, finalized in November 2023, and became effective on February 12, 2024. It requires live poultry dealers to provide prospective growers with specified information before entering a growing arrangement, including information about expected earnings, facility requirements, and the dealer’s procedures for making projections. Dealers using tournament systems are also required to disclose additional information about grower payments and flock performance. USDA characterized the rule as a way to help growers evaluate contracts and understand the financial risks associated with an arrangement.
The second rule, Inclusive Competition and Market Integrity Under the Packers and Stockyards Act, was proposed in October 2022, finalized on March 6, 2024, and became effective on May 6, 2024. It identifies certain forms of prejudice or discrimination, retaliation, and deception as violations of § 202. Among other things, the rule protects market participants from retaliation for communicating with government officials, asserting their legal rights, joining producer associations, or serving as a witness in a proceeding against the regulated entity. It also addresses deceptive statements or omissions in contract formation, performance, termination, and refusal.
The third rule, Poultry Grower Payment Systems and Capital Improvement Systems, was published in January 2025, shortly before President Biden left office. Once effective, it will prohibit certain reductions below a contract’s base compensation rate under broiler-grower tournament systems, require live poultry dealers to adopt procedures intended to ensure fair comparisons among growers, and require additional disclosures when a dealer requests or requires a grower to make a capital investment. As poultry houses and equipment can require substantial borrowing, USDA said the disclosures would help growers evaluate the purpose of an investment and whether they could reasonably expect to recover its cost. Unlike the two earlier rules, this one was given a delayed effective date.
Finally, USDA proposed a broader Fair and Competitive Livestock and Poultry Markets rule in 2024. It focused on §202 of the PSA, which establishes types of unlawful conduct under the PSA. Historically, federal courts considering these claims have interpreted the provisions to require a showing of injury or likely injury to competition in the market as a whole. The rule would have instead required plaintiffs to reach a lower bar—that a company engaged in activity that “causes or is likely to cause substantial injury to one or more market participants,” rather than proving activity that injures competition to the market in general. However, USDA withdrew the proposal in January 2025, after receiving considerable public feedback, stating that withdrawal would preserve its ability to reexamine the issues and explore implementation with stakeholders.
Trump Administration Developments
The second Trump administration has reconsidered some of the Biden-era regulatory approach.
The most immediate regulatory change concerns the Poultry Grower Payment Systems and Capital Improvement Systems rule. On June 1, 2026, USDA published a final rule delaying its effective date from July 1, 2026, until December 31, 2027. USDA cited the need for additional time to consider the rule’s estimated costs, policy implications, legal issues, and congressional direction. As the rule had not yet taken effect, the delay prevents its new payment-system and capital-investment requirements from becoming operative while the agency decides whether to retain, revise, or withdraw them.
USDA’s 2026 Unified Agenda goes further. It lists proposed rulemakings to rescind all three of the Biden administration’s major Packers and Stockyards Act rules: the poultry-contract transparency rule, the inclusive competition and market integrity rule, and the poultry grower payment and capital-improvement rule. The agenda describes these actions as proposed rules, meaning the entries announce the agency’s regulatory plans but do not themselves repeal the existing regulations. In practice, USDA would generally need to publish proposed rescissions, accept public comments, and provide a reasoned explanation before issuing final rules. As of August 2026, the transparency and inclusive-competition rules therefore remain in effect, while the payment-systems rule remains final but has an effective date postponed until the end of 2027.
Even as USDA considers rescinding the three rules, the Trump administration has continued to raise competition concerns in agricultural markets. In November 2025, President Trump directed the Department of Justice to investigate major meatpackers for possible collusion, price fixing, and price manipulation. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins likewise told Congress in June 2026 that USDA had entered into an agreement with the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division to help ensure that farmers have access to competitive and affordable agricultural inputs. These actions do not establish what USDA ultimately will do with the three Packers and Stockyards Act rules, but they indicate that agricultural competition remains an administration concern.
Moving Forward
The next phase will likely turn on whether USDA follows through with the planned rescission proposals and how broadly those proposals are written. The agency could repeal the rules in full, narrow selected provisions, replace them with less prescriptive disclosure standards, or retain portions that it concludes provide benefits exceeding their compliance costs. Public comments from producers, poultry companies, livestock groups, and other stakeholders will shape the administrative record. Any final rescission could then face a challenge under the Administrative Procedure Act, particularly if opponents contend that USDA failed to account for producer reliance interests or did not adequately explain its departure from the findings supporting the earlier rules.
Congress could also impact the next steps. For example, it could amend the Packers and Stockyards Act to specify whether §202(a) requires proof of marketwide competitive injury, establish particular protections for contract growers, restrict USDA’s use of appropriated funds, or direct the agency to complete a particular rulemaking. Courts may continue to influence the issue as well. Decisions interpreting §202 and challenges to either the Biden-era rules or future rescissions could determine how much persuasive weight courts give USDA’s interpretation and whether the Act reaches conduct that harms an individual producer without measurable harm to competition. For now, the balance between fair markets and free markets that has shaped disputes under the Act for more than a century remains unsettled.