The Trump administration appears poised to roll back three Biden-era poultry competition rules as part of its 2026 regulatory agenda, drawing mixed reactions from producer and processor groups.
The Office of Management and Budget’s 2026 USDA rule list indicates that the administration is considering either delaying or withdrawing a rule barring integrators from paying producers reduced or discount payment rates in tournament ranking systems, while also establishing “a duty of fair compensation to ensure that grower comparisons are conducted in a reasonable and equitable way” and requiring poultry dealers to “adopt policies and procedures in furtherance of operating a fair ranking system for broiler growers.”
In addition, the OMB site also indicates the administration is considering scrapping a rule requiring poultry integrators to disclose average annual gross payments over a five-year span and information about variable costs associated with broiler production, a five-year litigation history involving growers, bankruptcy filings and average annual turnover rates for broiler growers in the previous five years.
It also marks for rescission a rule prohibiting packers, swine contractors and live poultry dealers from taking actions based on a producers' race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, marital status, and age, and from retailing against producers for communicating with government agencies, joining a producer association and exploring business relationships with other companies.
In response, leaders of the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Farmers Union issued a joint statement saying they they are “troubled by news that USDA plans to rescind or continue to delay several rules that are specifically designed to benefit America’s farmers and ranchers.”
“The Trump administration has long said that it supports farmers and ranchers, but voiding these rules would do the exact opposite,” AFBF President Zippy Duvall and NFU President Rob Larew said. “Instead, more power would be given to large processing companies at the expense of America’s farmers.”
National Chicken Council President Harrison Kircher praised the Agriculture Department for planning to rescind the rules, which he said were "rushed, one-size-fits-all mandates that would have added compliance costs and legal uncertainty without benefiting farmers or consumers."
"We trust this administration to regulate competitive markets, support American agriculture, and protect consumers — not through duplicative federal mandates, but through common-sense oversight that reflects how the modern broiler industry actually works," Kircher said in a press release.
Similarly, Meat Institute President and CEO Julie Anna Potts applauded the proposed rescissions and said the regulations "placed plaintiff lawyer profits ahead of farmers and ranchers’ prosperity."
“The Biden administration attempted to use lawfare to limit marketing options that reward livestock and poultry producers for investing in their operations and providing consumers with the abundant and high-quality meat and poultry they demand," Potts said in a statement.
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