The United States Department of Agriculture appears in The Bob Zadek Show chiefly as a regulator whose rules reach far beyond food safety — into criminal liability, the structure of the meatpacking industry, and the appearance of produce on grocery shelves. Across four episodes between 2015 and 2022, guests described USDA requirements and USDA-adjacent statutes as instruments that punish innocent conduct, entrench large processors, and consign edible food to waste. The department is discussed alongside the FDA, the Department of Commerce and the Lacey Act, and the recurring claim is that rules framed as consumer protection serve organized interests rather than consumers.
Overcriminalization and the Lacey Act
In a 2015 episode on overcriminalization, attorney Brian Walsh told the story of Abner Schoenwetter, a seafood importer of about 20 years who, Walsh said, “had no violations” and “conformed to all USDA, FDA requirements, all the inspections, all the rest.” A bureau of the Department of Commerce received an anonymous fax claiming his shipment would be illegal, and his ship was boarded. Walsh said Schoenwetter had not violated any U.S. law per se but had allegedly violated Honduran regulations — one of which required seafood to be packaged in cardboard boxes, while he had used un-leakable plastic bags. Under the Lacey Act, Walsh explained, a violation of any nation’s fish or wildlife regulation becomes a federal violation punishable by penitentiary time. Schoenwetter served eight years in prison “You’re Under Arrest!”: Overcriminalization with Brian Walsh (2015).
Walsh noted that the Honduran government later said the regulation was not valid and enforceable at the time of the alleged violation, and that the Attorney General of Honduras gave a sworn statement to that effect. He observed that Congress did not examine every law or regulation of every nation on earth when it enacted the Lacey Act. Bob Zadek called it “lazy, lazy, lazy, thoughtless legislation” and “legislative malpractice,” asking listeners to imagine being imprisoned for eight years for such an act “You’re Under Arrest!”: Overcriminalization with Brian Walsh (2015). The excerpt breaks off at the heading “The Gibson Guitar Raid,” so the episode’s treatment of that subject is not available here.
The Raisin Administrative Committee and Horne v. USDA
In a June 2015 episode, Baylen Linnekin, identified as Executive Director of the Keep Food Legal Foundation, described the Hornes as a California couple who, in the USDA’s terminology, “handle” raisins. For the privilege of doing business as a raisin handler, he said, there is a USDA program called the Raisin Administrative Committee, in place since the New Deal era, which requires handlers to turn over a significant portion of their crop Baylen Linnekin on the Front lines of the Fight for Food Freedom (2015).
Zadek described the committee’s job as managing the retail price of raisins: when growers collectively grow too many, depressing the price in theory, the excess goes to the committee so the price remains high, and the committee ultimately disposes of the raisins and shares the profits with growers — a cartel-like manipulation of grocery-store prices. Linnekin agreed and noted similar programs for other fruits and vegetables, and for spearmint oil. He said that at one point nearly half of the Hornes’ raisin crop, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, was ordered seized, and that the Hornes claimed an unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause and sued Baylen Linnekin on the Front lines of the Fight for Food Freedom (2015).
The case, Linnekin said, went from the Ninth Circuit to the Supreme Court, back to the Ninth Circuit, and back up. Zadek described the first round: the government said that to contest the taking the Hornes had to pay a fine of about three-quarters of a million dollars first, and the Supreme Court held the government cannot require paying the fine as a condition of getting into court. Linnekin said the Court then ruled that personal property such as raisins is protected by the Takings Clause in the same way as real property like a home, and that the Raisin Administrative Committee program is now in “very shaky constitutional territory” — it will have to rewrite how it operates or go away Baylen Linnekin on the Front lines of the Fight for Food Freedom (2015).
The PRIME Act and the Meat Processing Oligopoly
In an April 2020 episode, Rep. Thomas Massie, who said he had been raising cattle for 16 years, described a brittle food supply in which four meatpackers — one owned by China, one by Brazil, and one a multinational — control 80% of the meat market. Small local processors, he said, can process beef only if the customer owns the animal; the USDA has regulated them out of existence in most cases, or out of the supermarket through overregulation. The big factories, he added, love this regulation because it keeps the little guys out Prime time for the PRIME Act (2020).
Massie said he had introduced the PRIME Act — Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption — five years earlier and in every Congress since. The bill provides that if the farmer, grocery store, consumer and meat processor are in the same state, the USDA need not be at the processor’s facility 24/7. Today, he said, small processors are inspected by the local health department and subject to surprise USDA inspections, but because they do not employ a full-time USDA meat inspector they cannot sell their food in supermarkets. His bill would allow local sales where the consumer can know who the butcher and the farmer were Prime time for the PRIME Act (2020).
Zadek framed the background: since the Wholesome Meat Act, a beef processor cannot sell its product unless a full-time federal inspector is on site, creating a bottleneck that forces ranchers to sell to the few processors large enough to afford the regulatory infrastructure — an oligopoly. Massie said the lead sponsor in the Senate is Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, and that Justin Amash, who recently switched to the Libertarian Party, is a House sponsor Prime time for the PRIME Act (2020).
On opposition, Massie described a revolving door between congressional staff, the USDA and lobbying, saying the USDA is opposed to the bill — “the money’s against it, the Deep State is against it.” He also said farm groups that farmers pay to belong to lobby against the PRIME Act in Washington even though their members support it, because much of their money comes from meatpackers or from groups like the corn growers with an interest in cheap calf prices. He noted that these same groups lobbied successfully in 2015 to eliminate Country of Origin Labeling on beef and pork, so that beef and pork, unlike fish, vegetables, iPhones, shoes, suits, tools and cars, no longer carry country-of-origin labels Prime time for the PRIME Act (2020).
Grading Standards and Food Waste
In a June 2022 episode on food waste, Zadek said government dictates the words used in food labeling and complained that the worst grade of meat is called something like “Choice” rather than a negative word. He asked Linnekin how grading and standard-setting keep edible food off the market Food (Waste) Freedom (2022).
Linnekin said hundreds of food products regulated by the USDA and/or the FDA are graded — dairy, eggs, meat — and that the grades are arbitrary, established through work between big business and the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service. He gave examples: a Grade A apple must have 40% brightness in its red coverage, and top-grade carrots must be at least an inch in circumference. Businesses want fields of uniform food, he said, and grading facilitates their grip on the grocer’s shelf. While no rule requires selling only graded foods, field workers are told to leave skinny carrots behind because a grocer like Walmart won’t buy them; Linnekin noted Walmart had recently begun buying some “ugly fruit,” a private-industry term rather than a grade Food (Waste) Freedom (2022).
Linnekin said food that fails the grade is left to rot in the field, which is why gleaners — he mentioned picking blueberries himself — collect it for people in need. He said there is no objective quality difference between so-called ugly fruit and top-grade produce, and that food bred for looks almost always tastes worse than food bred for flavor. He cited a congressional study from about 1974 finding that the grades, being non-uniform and lacking objectivity, confuse consumers, drive up prices and cause waste Food (Waste) Freedom (2022).
Across episodes
The excerpts show no single developing argument but a recurring theme treated from different angles: Walsh (2015) on criminal liability under the Lacey Act, Linnekin (2015) on the Raisin Administrative Committee and Horne v. USDA, Massie (2020) on the PRIME Act and meatpacking concentration, and Linnekin (2022) on grading and food waste. The later episodes do not revisit or revise the earlier claims; each names its own program, statute or case.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not describe the USDA’s founding, its organic statutes, its budget or its food-safety inspection results, and they do not give the outcome of the Gibson Guitar Raid discussion, which breaks off at a heading. They do not state the full procedural history or vote counts in Horne v. USDA beyond what the speakers say, nor the text or current status of the PRIME Act. No excerpt states the city or state of any proceeding, the name of any bill other than the PRIME Act, or the titles of the guests beyond those given.