- A bipartisan coalition of 32 AGs launched a partnership with the USDA to address anticompetitive market structures in the agricultural sector and related markets, including increased prices and fewer choices, that are negatively impacting consumers and producers.
- The Agricultural Competition Partnership will invest in opportunities and leverage state and federal authority, expertise, and insight to combat anticompetitive barriers in industries including food, grocery, retail, and meat and poultry processing. Specifically, the initiative will enhance the capacity of state AGs to conduct assessments of competition and consumer issues and enhance coordination between federal and state agriculture and competition authorities.
- The partnership follows a letter that some of the AGs wrote to the USDA in December 2021 highlighting unfavorable market concentration in the livestock sector. In response, the USDA subsequently issued a challenge to the AGs in September 2022 to partner to address competition issues in the food and agricultural space using funds from the Consolidated Appropriations Act.