USDA's regulatory agenda lists repeal of three Packers and Stockyards rules for poultry growers and livestock sellers

“The proposed rule would request comment on the removal of the regulations published on March 6, 2024.” That sentence, in USDA’s 2026 Unified Agenda printed in the Federal Register on Aug. 14, is the department’s formal notice that it intends to unwind the Inclusive Competition and Market Integrity rule under the Packers and Stockyards Act^[1]. Two neighboring entries say the same about the 2023 poultry tournament disclosure rule and the 2025 broiler payment systems rule^[1]. Contract broiler growers would lose the most; cattle and hog sellers are covered by the 2024 rule as well^{[3, 4, 5]}.

The details: three rules, three timetables

The agenda lists all three under the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), at the proposed rule stage, citing the Packers and Stockyards Act and Executive Orders 14337, 14192 and 14219^[1].

Inclusive Competition and Market Integrity (RIN 0581-AE49). The March 2024 rule prohibits undue prejudice and unjust discrimination against individuals on a prohibited basis unrelated to the quality of their product or service. It treats retaliation for lawful communications, asserting rights and associating with others as unjust discrimination, and it identifies deceptive practices in forming, performing, terminating and refusing contracts^[4]. It applies across livestock, meat, poultry and live poultry markets and took effect May 6, 2024^[4]. The agenda puts the repeal proposal at July 2026^[1].

Transparency in Poultry Grower Contracting and Tournaments (RIN 0581-AE50). The November 2023 rule requires live poultry dealers raising broilers to give growers specified disclosures and information about their growing arrangements, with additional disclosures for dealers that use ranking systems to settle grower pay^[5]. It took effect Feb. 12, 2024^[5]. The agenda targets October 2026 for the proposal to remove it^[1].

Poultry Grower Payment Systems and Capital Improvement Systems (RIN 0581-AE51). Published Jan. 16, 2025, this rule bars dealers from cutting a grower’s pay based on the grower’s tournament ranking, creates a presumptive violation when ranking-based payments exceed a set threshold, holds dealers to a “duty of fair comparison” in designing their ranking systems, and requires disclosures when a dealer asks a grower to make additional capital investments^{[2, 3]}. The agenda entry says the rule “is being withdrawn through the notice and comment process,” with a proposal estimated for July 2026^[1].

None of the three is gone yet. USDA’s own agenda says its listed dates “are estimated and are not commitments to act on or by the date shown”^[1].

In the field: who loses which protections

Broiler growers carry most of the exposure, because two of the three rules apply only to them. AMS counted 45 live poultry dealers processing broilers under the payment systems rule in fiscal 2023, 24 of them small businesses by the Small Business Administration’s 1,250-employee standard^[2]. Civil Eats reported in July that about 20,000 farmers raise chickens under contract for processors and that four companies control 60 percent of the market^[6].

AMS’s own analysis, in the June delay rule, put it plainly: “broiler growers are expected to enjoy most of the benefits, while LPDs bear most of the costs”^[2]. LPD is the agency’s shorthand for live poultry dealer.

AMS priced the compliance cost of the payment rule at $4.9 million a year for dealers in each of the first four years and about $249,000 a year for growers^[2]. It said delaying the rule by 18 months saves the two groups a combined $5.2 million in the first year^[2]. Commenters opposing the delay argued those costs were small set against an industry with more than $45 billion in annual sales, and that the unquantified benefits included more predictable minimum pay and better financial planning^[2].

Commenters opposing the delay also pointed to the consent decree in United States v. Cargill Meat Solutions Corp., which limited performance pay and ended base-pay reductions in that company’s grower contracts. AMS answered that the decree covers only part of what the rule requires and that it wanted to review the requirements across the whole industry^[2].

Turkey, duck and goose growers are outside the payment rule unless their dealer also contracts for broilers^[2].

Cattle and hog producers are affected through the 2024 Inclusive Competition rule, which applies to livestock as well as poultry^[4]. Its retaliation provisions reach practices that interfere with a producer’s lawful communications, assertion of rights and participation in associations^[4]. Civil Eats reported that groups representing the largest meat companies sued USDA in spring 2025 to overturn that rule^[6].

On the Hill: a delay Congress asked for, and a repeal it did not

The payment rule’s path ran through appropriations. In the explanatory statement accompanying Pub. L. 119-37, the Nov. 12, 2025, law that carried USDA’s fiscal 2026 appropriations, appropriators wrote that “the agreement encourages the Department to delay implementation” of the rule^[2]. AMS proposed the 18-month delay on March 18 and finalized it June 1, moving the effective date from July 1, 2026, to Dec. 31, 2027^[2].

Of the more than 2,800 comments on that delay, about 2,700 opposed it and about a dozen supported it^[2]. Supporters included one large poultry integrator and two meat and poultry trade associations; poultry growers and grower organizations were among the opponents^[2]. Some commenters argued that report language in an explanatory statement does not carry the force of law. AMS replied that it customarily follows such direction where practicable, and noted that several members of Congress had written in support of the delay while one senator had commented against it^[2].

The 2025 rule was issued to support Executive Order 14036, a 2021 order that Executive Order 14337 revoked on Aug. 13, 2025^[2]. The agenda describes the repeals as notice-and-comment rulemakings^[1].

Opponents are already organizing. In an Aug. 6 statement, Farm Aid said USDA had not given a reason for the rescissions and quoted Steve Etka, policy director of the Campaign for Contract Agriculture Reform, who said the plan surfaced in the Unified Agenda list and contrasted it with the administration’s public pledges on meatpacker competition^[7]. Farm Aid pointed to the next farm bill as a place to write stronger Packers and Stockyards protections into law^[7]. National Farmers Union President Rob Larew told Civil Eats in July that his group was “deeply concerned” by the proposal^[6].

What else is on USDA’s list?

The same agenda lists rules that touch other parts of the beat^[1]:

• SNAP retailers: a proposed rule on “Strengthening Integrity and Reducing Retailer Fraud” in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and a final rule updating staple food stocking standards for SNAP stores.
• Foreign farmland: a Farm Service Agency proposal to revise reporting under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA), following a Dec. 29, 2025, advance notice. The agenda says the AFIDA rule was last updated in 2006 and targets a final action for December 2026.
• Meat and poultry plants: a Food Safety and Inspection Service review of how it defines establishment size, which has relied on employee counts and annual sales since 1996.
• Walking horses: APHIS revisions to the Horse Protection Act rules, including a pre-show appeals process for soring findings.
• Bioengineered labeling: an AMS proposal, estimated for August 2026, to address deficiencies the Ninth Circuit found in the 2018 disclosure standard.

What to watch

• The AMS proposals. Two were estimated for July 2026 and the disclosure-rule repeal for October 2026^[1]. Each opens a comment period when published.
• Dec. 31, 2027. The broiler payment rule’s delayed effective date, if the withdrawal is not finished first^[2].
• Enforcement in the meantime. AMS said during the delay it “will continue to utilize its robust enforcement authority to investigate any allegations of unfair practices”^[2].

Whether AMS will propose the three repeals together or one at a time, and what reasons it will give, the agenda does not say.