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Title 7 — Agriculture

Chapter 56 — Unfair Trade Practices Affecting Producers of Agricultural Products

§ 2303. Prohibited practices

Statutory text

It shall be unlawful for any handler knowingly to engage or permit any employee or agent to engage in the following practices:

(a)

To coerce any producer in the exercise of his right to join and belong to or to refrain from joining or belonging to an association of producers, or to refuse to deal with any producer because of the exercise of his right to join and belong to such an association; or

(b)

To discriminate against any producer with respect to price, quantity, quality, or other terms of purchase, acquisition, or other handling of agricultural products because of his membership in or contract with an association of producers; or

(c)

To coerce or intimidate any producer to enter into, maintain, breach, cancel, or terminate a membership agreement or marketing contract with an association of producers or a contract with a handler; or

(d)

To pay or loan money, give any thing of value, or offer any other inducement or reward to a producer for refusing to or ceasing to belong to an association of producers; or

(e)

To make false reports about the finances, management, or activities of associations of producers or handlers; or

(f)

To conspire, combine, agree, or arrange with any other person to do, or aid or abet the doing of, any act made unlawful by this chapter.

Legislative history

Reconstructed from this section’s Code source credit and amendment notes, resolved against the local Statutes at Large. Editorial notes are evidence, not the law that made the change.

  1. Pub. L. 90–288 § 4 · 82 Stat. 93

    Enacted · 7 U.S.C. § 2303

    (Pub. L. 90–288, § 4, Apr. 16, 1968, 82 Stat. 94.)

    Source evidence

    Code source credit
    (Pub. L. 90–288, § 4, Apr. 16, 1968, 82 Stat. 94.)

    Enacted provision · exact public law section
    Sec. 4. prohibited practices It shall be unlawful for any handler knowingly to engage or permit any employee or agent to engage in the following practices: (a) To coerce any producer in the exercise of his right to join and belong to or to refrain from joining or belonging to an association of producers, or to refuse to deal with any producer because of the exercise of his right to join and belong to such an association; or (b) To discriminate against any producer with respect to price, quantity, quality, or other terms of purchase, acquisition, or other handling of agricultural products because of his membership in or contract with an association of producers; or (c) To coerce or intimidate any producer to enter into, maintain, breach, cancel, or terminate a membership agreement or marketing contract with an association of producers or a contract with a handler; or (d) To pay or loan money, give any thing of value, or offer any other inducement or reward to a. producer for refusing to or ceasing to belong to an association of producers; or (e) To make false reports about the finances, management, or activities of associations of producers or handlers; or (f) To conspire, combine, agree, or arrange with any other person to do, or aid or abet the doing of, any act made unlawful by this Act.

1 of 1 references resolved to an enrolled provision

Credits

(Pub. L. 90–288, § 4, , 82 Stat. 94.)

Parsed from the official OLRC USLM XML in data/usc_all/usc07.xml · release point 119-108 · OLRC build 2026-09-09

USLM identifier /us/usc/t7/s2303