Why's beef so expensive? Politicians sold out Missouri cattle farmers to foreign firms Opinion

[UpInArms]

“A long time ago in a Congress far, far away,” an important antitrust law was passed to address extreme concentration in the United States’ meat industry. The Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 was created “to assure fair competition and fair trade practices, to safeguard farmers and ranchers ... to protect consumers … and to protect members of the livestock, meat, and poultry industries from unfair, deceptive, unjustly discriminatory and monopolistic practices.”

This fundamental law has not been enforced or strengthened to address the reality of today’s marketplace, specifically since the 1980s.

It’s been nearly three years since the largest corporate meatpackers were called before Congress to testify about excessive business consolidation in the meat industry, increased prices for consumers, low prices for livestock producers and record profits for themselves. However, that’s where it stopped — and our elected representatives have done nothing to address multinational and foreign control of our cattle and beef markets. So the United States Department of Agriculture had to do it itself.

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Here are just a few examples of what you get when just a few multinational billion-dollar corporations control almost all the beef in the U.S.:

America is a net importer of beef. In 2023 alone, the United States imported 3.7 billion pounds of boxed beef, and 2 million head of live cattle. We don’t have the ability to know where our meat comes from. Mandatory country of origin labeling for meat was passed in the 2008 farm bill, and its implementation along with widespread drought led to a steady increase in prices paid to cow and calf producers, culminating in the record profit of $518 per calf in 2014.

At the behest of multinational corporate meatpackers and lobbyists, Mexico and Canada filed a complaint to the World Trade Organization arguing that our country of origin law letting consumers know where their meat came from was an illegal trade barrier. The unelected, bureaucratic and pro-corporate World Trade Organization agreed.

In 2015, Congress repealed that law and our right to know and choose U.S. beef. According to the 2022 USDA Census of Agriculture, the U.S. lost 150,000 cattle operations, and Missouri lost 10,000 cattle operations in just those five years.

Read more at: https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article294880889.html#storylink=cpy

[rockbluff botanist]

1. The rancher is not making any money

As a member of a multi-generational ranching family (over 100 yrs on our land), let me tell you, we are not making any more profit since the grocery industry began raking in huge unearned profits (PUBLIX PUBLIX PUBLIX).

We can't afford to buy beef at the grocery store and we raise it. If we didn't lease land to vegetable farmers, things would be really tight.

Thanks DeSantis for your total disregard for Florida families with huge taxes and insurance costs.