FoFF Working to Expand Meat Processing in Oregon

2025 FoFF Meat Processing Bill

What is the problem?

Friends of Family Farmers has been working to expand small producers’ access to meat processing facilities around the state for over a decade. Until 2021, in order to sell individual cuts of meat, farmers in Oregon had to have access to a USDA inspected facility. As of now, Oregon only has 13 of these facilities spread across the state. This has created situations where farmers now need to get processing appointments almost a year in advance, and in many cases drive several hours to bring their animals to slaughter. There is also not capacity for new producers in the current USDA system. Trying to establish new processor relationships as a small farmer has been a barrier to success across the state. These extra costs and physical barriers limit the number of animals small producers can bring to market. The cost burden of USDA Inspection is not scalable for small processors, so smaller slaughter and butchery operations who often cater to family farmers are going out of business. 

In 2020 FoFF and others advocated for the legislature to authorize ODA to create a USDA approved State Meat Inspection Program which would allow producers the same sales outlets as USDA processed facilities as long as the products were sold within Oregon. This program was developed by ODA and authorized by USDA in 2021, but the state has not prioritized funding staff to adequately run the program. In the 2023 approved budget and in the 2025 Agency Requested Budget, this program is receiving 0 FTE for inspectors in continuing service level. Meat processing is not like other food safety programs where inspections happen on an annual or regular basis. In this type of inspection an inspector must be present to turn the machines on. It is crucial that we build the capacity to meet the needs of the facilities currently building to participate in this program.

There are “custom exempt” butcher operations like mobile slaughter units that can offer alternatives for small scale operations. The catch is these operations can only process meat sold to customers in half or quarter shares while the animal is still alive. Read more about custom exempt butchery in OSU’s Frequently Asked Questions about the law. Although this is a valid alternative, not all farms sell meat in this way, not all customers can afford to buy and store hundreds of pounds of meat at a time, and there are not even enough of these custom facilities to meet the current demand.

Why Does FoFF Care?

As far back as 2000, USDA was acknowledging the consolidation of the meat packing industry as a concern in reducing competition (read more in this USDA report). This has only escalated and according to this Civil Eats piece about the industry: “Four companies now control more than half of the market in chicken processing (Tyson, JBS, Perdue, and Sanderson), close to 70 percent in pork (Smithfield, JBS, Tyson, and Hormel), and nearly three quarters in beef (JBS, Tyson, Cargill, and National Beef), according to one recent analysis.”

When we say that this amount of processing capacity is controlled by these companies, it means it is not available to anyone outside their contract system. This level of consolidation comes along with vertical integration and a contract growing system that has pinned farmers into a corner for decades in this country. When farmers enter into contracts with these companies for production, they are not only agreeing to sell their chickens or pigs or cattle through them, they are also agreeing to a system of production that is determined by the company, they become indebted to the company through mandatory costs for the program and often get on a treadmill of debt that does not provide a way to ever gain independence as a farmer. This is how the industrial model gets well meaning family farmers to turn into factory farms. Part of the reason that these contract growing models are so attractive to farmers is the predictability of income from the contracts, based in large part in these companies’ ability to guarantee processing at their facilities.

Without options to legally bring their product to market, small farmers will stop producing animals on pasture. FoFF supports the promotion and expansion of pasture based livestock production for its animal health, ecosystem stabilizing, and soil health benefits. Read more on the positive climate impact of grazing animals in this study based on White Oak Pastures in Georgia. When grazed in a well managed, rotational, adaptive management style, cattle have the potential to sequester more carbon than the land on its own in the soil, and make a positive impact on the climate resilience of the food system as a whole. But, this positive impact is predicated on sustained adherence to this production model, something that can only happen in our capitalist system if the farm is commercially viable. These types of regenerative models are not used in industrial livestock production and without access to the majority of facilities in the country controlled by those companies, independent producers are left to fight for the available slots at the other facilities. These facilities are also operating at very thin margins and don’t have the luxury of the replicability and assurance of the contract system, so they have to make choices about who they work with based on the standardization and order size of the customer. The processors are not to blame here, it is the system as a whole that disincentivizes them to work with smaller producers because of the cost/benefit of working with a larger farm over time.

The state meat inspection program removes some of the disincentives by restricting plant use to the producers who plan to sell their product within Oregon’s state lines. Because of their nationwide and multi-national approach to distribution, big contract based firms would not be as interested in this type of certification or capacity, so expansion of the State Meat Inspection Program should create more opportunity for farmers raising animals for their immediate community.

The Solution

After discussing this problem at length with ODA and people doing this work day to day, we have decided to bring a bill forward to fund 2 FTE at the Department of Agriculture to serve this programming in the 2025-27 biennium. This can be matched with an additional FTE funded through federal matching from USDA bringing the total to 3 FTE. The hope here is that although 3 people would not be enough to work across the whole state if this FTE can be broken into multiple existing ODA part time or seasonal positions in targeted areas, there could be someone in every region at least a few days a week. It is imperative that we get more dedicated staffing for this program now because more firms are coming on line imminently. The State Meat Processing Infrastructure grant fund at ODA has distributed nearly $11M since 2021 and the facilities it has funded are finishing construction and will need regular inspection capacity soon. Not to mention that FoFF also supports the state’s continuation of this grant funding to bring more facilities online. We need to rise to meet them and provide this valuable service to the community. Let’s meet the demand of farmers and community, not leave federal funds on the table, and move Oregon’s livestock production in a climate and disaster resilient direction.