The Justice Department and the Agriculture Department set the dates for a series of five workshops on competitiveness and regulation in agriculture. In addition to the inaugural workshop in Iowa, others will be held in Alabama, Colorado, Wisconsin and Washington D.C. throughout 2010.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced J. Dudley Butler will head the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, which promotes fair and competitive trading practices. Butler has "demonstrated a commitment to helping rural America prosper, which is consistent with the vision that the president and I share," Vilsack said. A onetime cattle herdsman, Butler has been a lawyer for over three decades. He has testified before Congress on matters involving agriculture and arbitration, and he served on a mandatory price reporting task force that led to the passage of a federal law.

President Obama's budget outline proposes unspecified resources to increase enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act, which seeks to ensure that small farmers can bring their goods to market. In addition, it cuts funding for overseas promotion of specific brands, which benefits big business; the program will instead focus on promoting "generic American products."