Let's Make A Deal

The packer ownership provision is rearing its ugly head again in the Senate version of the farm bill.

There's been a lot of talk about restricting the way cattlemen can market their cattle, but I've heard very little about controlling when a business may make purchases. No, the provision does not control how and when cattlemen may make purchases, but if Congress decides that it can control a packer's checkbook, why not yours and mine?

So for the sake of illustration, why don't we make a deal? If the packers should be restricted on how and when they can buy their inputs, so should it be for the cattleman. Think about how it might be should Congress decide to control a cattleman's purchases. What if they said we could not buy inputs prior to 14 days before they are used, to protect the free market?
For instance, cattlemen will not be allowed to purchase any feedstuffs except for what they can feed in 14 days. They must buy their corn, silage, and everything else on the market--every day, regardless of price. "But corn is $4 today and I could have bought it in October for $3.30," you say. I understand, but those are the new rules.

We will not be able to raise our own corn, hay or any other feedstuffs, because that would be an unfair advantage. A free market is needed for grain and hay producers. And feeders may not purchase stockers to run on wheat ground in the winter before they come to the feedlot because that would be owning the cattle prior to the 14 day window of the law. No segment of the industry may overlap into the next.

Surely you understand that I offer this scenario only as food for thought. I do not want the government telling me how and when I can buy or sell cattle, feed or anything else. I want the choice to be able to buy a year's worth of hay or buy it a bale at a time. I want the choice to be able to sell a load of heifers at the salebarn, on video auction, off the farm, or retain ownership at the feedlot.

Perhaps instead of spending so much time and energy trying to control what other segments of the business do, we should focus our efforts on controlling our own portion of the business.

Don't like the price? Take your cattle out of the commodity market, improve the quality and sell based on merit instead of pounds alone.

That way, you have more of the power and aren't forfeiting control to the government.

That's a much better deal in my book.

Holly Martin can be reached by phone at 1-800-452-7171 ext. 1806 or e-mail at hmartin@hpj.com.
12/10/07

Response To: HPJ editor Holly Martin - Ban on packer ownership is a theft control measure
 
Holly,
 
Your "ugly head" editorial of 12/10/07, referring to the ban on packer ownership of livestock in the current farm bill proposal, fails to recognize the simple purpose of the law. Big packers are stealing our livestock, and we want to make them stop.

The drive to fill their own coffers have many "farm press talking heads" and so-called "producer" organizations siding with the big packers in steering ag producers down the road to serfdom and to the complete industrialization and monopolization of our food system.

History teaches the importance in free societies of avoiding concentration of power and wealth into the hands of a few. Meatpacker concentration has never been worse. In fact, one of our big three U.S. packers is now a Brazilian company - JBS Friboi, the biggest beef packer in the world, also recently cited for price manipulation by the Brazilian government. In mouthing the corporate script, you are facilitating further concentration and consolidation, reducing market access for all producers. This dangerous and predatory business environment all but eliminates any possibility of fair markets, as well as local, healthier, and more economically beneficial food systems.
History also teaches that overwhelming and widespread abusive power can only be broken through government action. Our entire food system has never been as concentrated as it is today. Ag producers have never been so exploited by big agribusiness. We have never received so little, especially in nutritional quality and safety, for our food dollars.

As was shown 100 years ago with the government break-up of our nation's crushing business monopolies, good legislation, its proper implementation and enforcement, is the only effective way to keep markets working; thereby returning a fair share of the consumer food dollar to labor, farmers and ranchers; and providing safe dependable food to people. Greedy, rich and politically powerful Wall Street based corporations know only one thing: profit, profit at all costs, and profit right now. They are the reason we have antitrust laws. 

You only have to look at the hopeless condition of chicken and hog farmers to know where cattlemen will end up if we don't restore fairness to the marketplace. 'Ugly' is the media goats bleating the praises of big agribusiness as they lead producers to slaughter. 'Ugly' is seeing our food system under the control of Tyson, Swift, Smithfield, Kroger and Wal-Mart. 'Ugly' is the continued gutting of our rural landscape as market-less, bankrupt food producers are forced from their land and into the already overcrowded cities. 'Ugly' is not being able to feed ourselves and becoming more and more dependent on foreign sources of food, as these powerful corporations look beyond our borders for the cheapest possible grain and livestock.

When considering what kind of food system we want, let us think about another time of abusive meatpacker power and the words of Upton Sinclair in 1906: "There seemed to be something about the work of slaughtering that tended to ruthlessness and ferocity--it was literally the fact that in the methods of the packers a hundred human lives did not balance a penny of profit." And contrary to the words of former Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman, it isn't different this time.

Fair, open and competitive markets are essential in preserving our choices, our freedom and well-being. We need effective law enforcement to force big packers and retailers to deal fairly and to keep them from stealing from producers and consumers.

I hope you will reconsider your position.

Mike Callicrate
Ranch Foods Direct
2901 N. El Paso
Colorado Springs, CO 80907
719-473-2306
www.ranchfoodsdirect.com 

Good Neighbor Committee
P.O. Box 155 - La Salle, CO  80645
info@goodneighborlaw.com

| Good Neighbor Law© 2006 |