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The administration quietly delivers a huge win to corporate poultry processors, who have donated tens of millions to Trump and his allies, at the expense of family farmers.
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Last week, the Trump administration published the Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The purpose of the Unified Agenda is to detail all of the proposed rules and rescissions under consideration by the current administration. The voluminous document, which is so large it is no longer printed, contains 450 pages of narrative text and an additional 3,954 individual rule entries.
Many of these entries catalogue actions that were previously announced by individual agencies. But sprinkled throughout the text are genuinely new policy actions.
The Unified Agenda released last week includes a new massive giveaway to corporate poultry processors, who rank among Trump’s largest political donors.
Pilgrim’s Pride, the nation’s second-largest poultry processor, donated $5 million to President Trump’s 2025 inauguration — the single largest donation by any corporation or individual. Pilgrim’s Pride’s donation was more than the donations of Meta, Amazon, Google, and Apple CEO Tim Cook combined.
In the 2026 cycle, Ronald Cameron, the owner and chairman of Mountaire Farms, the nation’s fourth-largest poultry processor, donated about $5 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF) and the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the two super PACs devoted to maintaining Republican control of Congress. Since 2016, Cameron has donated about $29 million combined to the CLF and SLF.
In the 2024 cycle, Cameron donated $1 million to MAGA Inc, Trump’s main Super PAC, and $2 million to Preserve America, another super PAC supporting Trump. Cameron also made a critical $2 million donation to Rebuilding America Now, a Super PAC formed to support Trump’s candidacy, in August 2016. That donation came at a time when Trump was trailing in most polls and his political support was flagging.
The latest Unified Agenda reveals the Trump administration plans to repeal rules that protect farmers from abuses by large poultry processors, including Pilgrim’s and Mountaire.
Farmers who raise chickens are paid by companies like Pilgrim’s and Mountaire through the “tournament system.” Under this arrangement, the large poultry processors supply birds, provide feed, provision veterinary care, and dictate production methods. The farmers are paid a fee to raise the birds.
The tournament system compensates farmers based on how efficiently they convert feed to the weight of the birds. The most efficient farmers receive bonuses while less efficient farmers see their fees docked. (The bonuses are essentially funded by the reduced fees paid to some farmers.) This is seen as a rigged game that leaves the chicken farmers open to exploitation. After all, it is the poultry processors that control the inputs that largely determine the efficiency of the operation.
The Rural Advancement Foundation International called the tournament system “a manipulative scheme designed by poultry processing corporations to stabilize and control their own production expenses—in the form of prices paid to farmers—while transferring as much of the financial risk involved with growing chickens as possible onto growers they contract with.”
In February 2024, an Agriculture Department rule went into effect that required corporate poultry processors to provide more transparency to chicken farmers. Specifically, poultry processors were required to disclose the typical annual earnings of comparable farmers, a summary of the processor’s litigation and bankruptcy history, and company policies on depopulation events like disease outbreaks. This was a modest effort, but it did give farmers more information before contracting with companies like Pilgrim’s and Mountaire.
The National Chicken Council, which includes Pilgrim’s and Mountaire, “strongly“ opposed the disclosure rule. The new Unified Agenda revealed that the Trump administration is planning to repeal this rule. The Trump administration, according to the Unified Agenda, is also planning to repeal a related rule that prohibits poultry processors from retaliating against farmers that speak to regulators or join grower associations.
On July 1, another, more significant rule was supposed to take effect. The rule would have required corporate chicken processors to guarantee a base rate of pay to farmers and limited the amount of price variability that could be imposed with the tournament system. Under the current system, chicken processors can cut payments to farmers “by 50% or more.”
This rule had already been delayed by the Trump administration. The new Unified Agenda revealed that the Trump administration is planning to eliminate it entirely.
Although the rule reforming the tournament system was issued during the Biden administration, it is not a partisan issue. In a June 10 hearing, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) questioned Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on why the rule was being delayed.
“Going back 10 or 15 years, I’ve been involved in trying to help these poultry farmers not be screwed by the people that they’re producing the chickens for,” Grassley said. “So, how does this delay help our small family farmers, and does this delay help meatpackers more than family farmers?”
Rollins replied that she was focused on “making it better,” adding “I look forward to working with you on that.” But Grassley pressed. “How does the delay help the small family farmer?” he asked. “Can I circle back to you on that?” Rollins asked in response. “I want to get fully up to speed.” Rollins added that there were “real concerns with the way the Biden team wrote the rule” and “some real concerns with the profitability — and to ensure we are protecting all American agriculture.”
Less than a month later, Rollins’ department proposed scrapping the rule entirely. Grassley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move was announced very quietly, buried amid thousands of other rules and rescissions. This may be because it could create political problems for Trump and his allies. Trump has sought to portray himself as a champion of the family farmer.
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As Grassley intimated, this is a move to benefit corporate poultry processors at the expense of the family farmer.
The gift to Pilgrim’s Pride and other large poultry processors comes after these companies paid hundreds of millions of dollars over schemes to raise prices for consumers and shortchange farmers. In 2021, Pilgrim’s Pride pleaded guilty and was “sentenced to pay approximately $107 million in criminal fines for its participation in a conspiracy to fix prices and rig bids for broiler chicken products.” Separately, Pilgrim’s Pride paid “$75 million in 2021 to settle with poultry buyers over claims they colluded with Tyson Foods, and another $100 million in 2023 to resolve claims from poultry farmers alleging it colluded with rivals to underpay them through unfair tournament-style payment systems.”
Pilgrim’s Pride and Mountaire are also defendants in a long-running class action lawsuit, In re Broiler Chicken Antitrust Litigation, alleging that numerous large poultry processors have been conspiring to raise chicken prices since 2008. In 2025, Mountaire was among a group of defendants who paid $22.4 million to settle a portion of the claims brought by consumers. Pilgrim’s Pride was among a group of defendants who paid $181 million to settle consumer claims in 2021.
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