The Hill News

The shrinking number of livestock producers is a source of concern for Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, who said increasing concentration in the meat industry may be to blame.

Vilsack and Attorney General Eric Holder spoke to more than 1,000 meat producers at a public event in Fort Collins, Colo. Friday to discuss how to address the decline of small cattle, hog, and dairy farmers over the past 30 years. According to a report from Reuters, many in the audience favored increased government intervention to help smaller producers stay in business.

"We have lost hundreds of thousands of (cattle) producers, We see the same thing in hogs, we see the same thing in dairy," Vilsack said during a Friday press conference.

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