Klein's face showed little emotion as he sat at the head table with state and federal elected officials. When Harkin introduced him as the only antitrust division director to listen to farmers, he remained seated while farmers stood to applaud and cheer. Klein did speak briefly to the crowd. Instead, Klein and USDA's chief enforcer of the Packers and Stockyards Act, Mike Dunn, heard mostly anger and resentment. Kansas cattle feeder Mike Callicrate pulled no punches.
Today there is a war in the United States.
We are fighting against their abusive market power and the monopolistic control they are wielding against the US rancher and farmer and their control over the entire global agricultural community. Some who attended the meeting were disappointed that Klein and Dunn didn't hear more facts. But the enforcers of competition in the marketplace didn't go away completely empty handed. One of the more impressive bits of testimony came from Jim McPeak, president of a Minnesota-based swine breeding company, Babcock Swine. McPeak asked two Rochester, Minnesota attorneys for their interpretation of long-term hog marketing contracts with packers.