Gov Announces New Deal for Montana Meatpackers

It's National Ag Week celebrating agriculture, and Montana's Governor kicked off the week with a big announcement for Montana ranchers and the meatpacking industry in the state.

Here's what Governor Greg Gianforte (R-MT) announced on social media on Monday.

Gov. Gianforte: GREAT NEWS – we’ve finalized a Cooperative Interstate Shipment agreement with U.S. Department of Agriculture, making Montana only the tenth state in the nation where meat processors can ship products throughout the United States. #AgWeek

What's the reaction from Montana ranchers, and more specifically the Montana Stockgrowers Association? We caught up with MSGA President Jim Steinbeisser out of Sidney, Montana.

Jim Steinbeisser: "Certainly anything we can do to make it easier to move our product outside of the state, because this state has more cattle than people. And so if we're going to make any real inroads in marketing beef, we're going to have to get it outside of the state. Of course, we're happy to sell it to local customers as well. So we'll see. Currently, if you wanted to go out of state, you had to get a USDA inspector in your processing plant, and then it could go out of state. So this will help some of the especially smaller processors, give them another tool to get beef across the border.

Here's the bottom line:

Jim Steinbeisser: Basically this would allow state inspected plants to move beef, their product, across the border...and state inspected processing facilities are- it is a rigorous inspection- and consumers can have every confidence that the product coming from state inspected plants is is safe.

Jim also shared his message for folks across Montana during National Ag Week. Click below for the full interview on Montana Talks with Aaron Flint.