Batesville native Dudley Butler resigned last week after almost three years as administrator of GIPSA, the acronym for an obscure agency within the Department of Agriculture — the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Agency.

In that capacity he spearheaded implementation of USDA’s controversial rules on livestock marketing: He made waves.

The rules were designed to give small producers protection against the preferential treatment large agri-businesses including factory farms and meat packers receive from buyers. The changes provoked the wrath of big processing companies like Tyson, Cargill and Swift and trade associations such as the American Meat Institute and the National Chicken Council. The Internet is littered with denunciations of Butler, Secretary of Agricultre Tom Vilsack and President Obama. Also found there are articles supporting the GIPSA rules from groups who have grown alarmed at the concentration of livestock production in this country into so few hands.

Butler said he’s ready to leave Washington and get back to his Mississippi cattle operation and law practice, and we don’t blame him.

But we’ll miss him making those waves in Washington. Last fall, the USDA, facing intense pressure from the agricultural corporatocracy, watered down some of the proposed GIPSA rules, setting back rules that would have leveled the playing field for small farmers and agricultural businesses just at the time when the American public has begun to seriously question what it eats, where it comes from and how it’s produced.