Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie and Maine Democrat Chellie Pingree introduced a bill this week that would let small-scale farmers slaughter and process their own cattle, hogs, sheep, and goats on the farm and sell the meat straight to consumers without routing it through a federally inspected plant. The measure, called the Red Meat Inspection Exemption Act, caps the practice at 25 cattle, 60 swine, 250 sheep, or 250 goats per farm each year, according to the bill's text as described in facts reported by Spectrum News.
The bill lands weeks after President Donald Trump promised in August 2026 to authorize changes letting farmers and ranchers process their own food, a pledge Massie's legislation now attempts to write into statute, as detailed in facts reported by Spectrum News. Trump had already signed two executive orders on September 5, 2026: one concerned country-of-origin labeling, and the other directed the USDA to ease inspection constraints for small and mid-sized ranchers, a move Hoodline covered at the time in its piece on how Trump aided ranchers after import backlash. Because executive orders alone cannot override the statutory limits written into the Federal Meat Inspection Act, Massie's bill is designed to codify those changes into law, according to National Hog Farmer.
Why Farmers Say the Current System Doesn't Work
Brian Furnish, who has raised cattle since 1994, told Spectrum News that he currently must use a USDA-certified facility if he wants to sell individual cuts directly to consumers. Instead, he uses a non-USDA graded facility, which limits him to selling whole animals, halves, or quarters rather than individual cuts. Furnish said USDA processing adds cost and that certified facilities are difficult to access, per the outlet's reporting.
Furnish said he likely would not take advantage of the new exemption himself to process his own livestock, but he supports the measure as long as consumer safety is maintained, and he backs reducing federal regulatory red tape for farmers trying to sell meat. His experience echoes a broader pattern sponsors cite: a 2023 USDA Economic Research Service report found that four meatpacking conglomerates — Tyson Foods, Cargill, JBS, and Marfrig — control roughly 85 percent of U.S. steer and heifer slaughter, leaving small producers reliant on a sparse network of certified facilities.
Poultry Already Operates This Way
Massie and Pingree point to an existing disparity in federal law as justification. Under the Poultry Products Inspection Act, small-scale poultry producers are already allowed to slaughter and process up to 1,000 or 20,000 birds annually on their own premises without continuous, bird-by-bird federal inspection, a framework the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service has operated under for decades, as outlined by Niche Meat Processing. Sponsors argue that if poultry farmers can safely sell uninspected birds, red-meat producers should get a similar carve-out.
The red-meat side of the law is far stricter. The Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 and the Wholesome Meat Act of 1967, codified at 21 U.S.C. § 623, limit uninspected custom-slaughter meat to personal household use by the animal's owner and ban direct commercial retail sales of individual cuts, according to the Office of the Law Revision Counsel. That statutory wall is the exact barrier Massie's new bill seeks to dismantle, within the bill's annual head-count limits.
A Broader Push With a Longer History
This is not Massie's first attempt at loosening custom-slaughter rules. He has also filed the PRIME Act, which would let farmers sell beef cuts processed at non-federally inspected facilities, provided local inspectors examine those cuts, according to facts reported by Spectrum News. In April 2026, the House passed a Farm Bill that included Section 12114, authorizing a pilot program for the PRIME Act allowing state-approved custom facilities to sell meat directly to consumers under state-administered oversight, per a press release from Rep. Massie's office.
The PRIME Act has bicameral momentum too. Senators Angus King of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky introduced a companion version in the Senate in July 2025 to enable intrastate sales of custom-slaughtered livestock, according to the Office of Senator Angus King. In Maine, that push is reinforced by a 2021 constitutional Right to Food amendment that voters approved, fueling local momentum for federal legislation enabling direct farm-to-consumer meat sales, National Hog Farmer reports.
Industry Groups Split on Safety
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association has staked out a middle position. The group supports increasing competition in cattle markets and creating more opportunities for small and regional beef processors, but it opposes weakening federal meat inspection and food-safety standards, per facts reported by Spectrum News. NCBA has instead favored the DIRECT Act, an alternative bill that would enable interstate e-commerce of state-inspected meat while preserving federal food-safety traceability rather than eliminating inspection requirements, according to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
The Meat Institute, which represents major meatpacking operations, has taken a harder line. The trade group declared its opposition to custom-slaughter exemptions in 2023, arguing that entering uninspected meat into commerce threatens public health and consumer trust, and that continuous inspection is necessary to trace potential foodborne outbreaks, according to the Meat Institute. The Red Meat Inspection Exemption Act itself requires compliance with food-safety requirements set by the USDA, even without routine federal inspection, under the bill's terms as reported by Spectrum News.
Massie, who represents Crescent Springs and raises cattle on his own Lewis County farm, has made direct farm-to-consumer sales a recurring legislative priority across several sessions of Congress. Whether this latest bill advances further than its predecessors will likely hinge on the same divide that has shaped the debate for years: farmers who want fewer federal hurdles on one side, and industry groups warning that inspection cuts corners on safety on the other.
