The Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration facilitates the marketing of livestock, poultry, meat, cereals, oilseeds, and related agricultural products and promotes fair and competitive trading practices for the overall benefit of consumers and American agriculture. One of GIPSA's programs, the Packers and Stockyards Program (P&SP), promotes fair and competitive marketing environments for the livestock, meat, and poultry industries for the benefit of American Agriculture. P&SP uses three actionable strategies; education, regulation, and investigation to promote fair and competitive markets through enforcement and administration of the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921. The Agency's Federal Grain Inspection Service (FGIS) facilitates the marketing of U.S. grain and related agricultural products through the establishment of standards for quality assessments, regulation of handling practices, and management of a network of Federal, State, and private laboratories that provide impartial, user fee funded official inspection and weighing services under the authority of the U.S. Grain Standards Act and the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946. These activities promote fair and transparent markets, increase crop value by aligning crop quality with specific consumer demands, reducing trade disputes resulting from conflicting descriptions of crop quality and value, and minimizing the cost of transactions between buyer and seller, both in the domestic and global market.
Grain Inspection, Packers & Stockyards Administration - May 1, 2007
Director, Public and Congressional Relations Staff