I own a small on-farm USDA inspected red meat and poultry slaughter and processing plant. Each year, we raise, process and market as much as a million pounds of pastured pork and poultry.

As a small processor, a current and past member of USDA advisory committees, and as an industry advocate, I want the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stand firm to its commitment to strengthen local and regional food systems and support U.S. farmers and ranchers. Existing small scale processors are essential to this goal, but need urgent support.

As we continue to witness complex supply chain disruptions across multiple industries, USDA is about to spend $500 million of American Rescue Plan funds in an attempt to “fix” the broken meat processing supply chain. This is welcome because if we do not invest in a more resilient supply chain, we will continue to see major disruptions. It is disheartening, however, that the currently proposed approach would be a bad investment for everyone involved, including consumers, farmers, ranchers and workers.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, once again, is excluding the small businesses that are most essential to creating resilient local and regional food systems. During a House Agriculture Committee hearing, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack testified that USDA is going to ignore the act’s clear language that these funds are intended to provide “grants and loans for small or midsized food processors.” Instead, Secretary Vilsack is spending $500 million on new processing establishments, and leaving behind the existing small processing businesses, like mine, that slaughter and process so much of the local and regional meat and poultry supply chain for thousands of farmers and ranchers across the U.S.

Locally raised meat faces a myriad processing constraints. Resolving them requires addressing supply and demand factors, antitrust issues, regulatory barriers, access to capital, fraudulent labeling, training of meat cutters, and capacity building in regenerative pasture-based farming systems. USDA should play a key role in ensuring that existing federally inspected small plants are able to apply for grant funding to address these issues. Small, federally inspected plants are serving most of the existing market needs, have the knowledge to succeed with expansions, and have the infrastructure in place to ensure a cost-effective expansion.

Existing small plants are critical infrastructure for food system resilience. The backlog in meat and poultry processing is not a new concern but it was exacerbated by the pandemic, as shutdowns caused herds destined for slaughter at large, centralized plants to be diverted to smaller facilities that serve local and regional markets. This strained the ability of small plants to continue to process small, pasture-raised and grass-fed based livestock and poultry.

The problem is that investing $500 million in new large facilities that are more of the same will not address brittle supply chain disruptions. Business owners like myself want Secretary Vilsack to know that consolidation cannot be addressed by adding $500 million worth of new, larger plants.

Instead, USDA investments in processing should focus on facilities that support independent farmers’ and ranchers’ meat brands — and not the large scale, vertically integrated meat production businesses. New funding should prioritize plants that work directly with independent producers. Otherwise, this administration’s commitment to “fight monopolization and promote competition” is mere hypocrisy.

The playing field for small players in meat, milk, eggs and poultry is not fair, competitive, open, or transparent. I agree with Secretary Vilsack that we need to “shift the balance of power back to the people” and “level the playing field for farmers and ranchers.” This $500 million investment, if distributed correctly, would be an important step toward accomplishing those goals.

So far, however, small federally inspected plants have been left out of the opportunity to receive USDA funds to modernize or expand to support growing local and regional markets, while funding new facilities will likely result in more processing and packaging of boxed products from the big packers, including foreign ground beef.

If the stated mission is resiliency and competition, we need to ensure these funds go to increase slaughter in small and very small plants and ONLY the subsequent processing from that slaughter. Prioritize small USDA inspected plants doing slaughter, especially for farmers for direct marketing over the plants transforming big packer boxed products.

Don’t leave out small processing plants like mine, Mr. Secretary.