‘Globalist Monopoly’ Owns 85% of US Cattle Supply Chain, Destroying American Ranchers

The Epoch Times ^ | Aug 26, 2022 | Facts Matter with Roman Balmakov

[DannyTN]

Roman Balmakov interviews the head of the American Cattle association.

Video at link. My Summary below.

[DannyTN]

My Summary:

• 4 companies control 85% of the US Cattle Supply Chain.
• Only 1 is Americanl, Cargill
• Tyson is multinational and highly owned by the Chinese. JBS and Manfreg are both Brazilian companies whose leaders have spent time in prison for bribery.
• Our government has allowed mergers to occur, thinking bigger is better and more efficient.
• They have price control.
• We saw shortages of meat during Covid because of the consolidations.
• A couple of plants shutdown causing severe supply chain issues.
• There is no free market for live cattle.
• The monopolies dictate the prices farmers will get and they charge the retailers what ever they want.
• Meat price increases is primarily due to the monopolies and not feed, fuel and other input inflation.
• Cow herd is lower than it's been in 40 years.
• They import beef from foreign countries and label it as US.
• Doesn't even matter where they are slaughtered.
• Back in 2009-2011 laws required that beef be clearly labeled as to origins.
• We got sued by Canada and Mexico in the WTO.
• Congress and Obama folded in June 2015, and repealed the country of origin labeling.
• Can be labeled product of USA if it's repackaged and relabeled.
• It's going to get worse as they run more American ranchers out of business.
• Are their solutions?
• Dept of Justice needs to investigate for anti-commpetitive practices and break them up.
• Pending Bipartisan Legislation: Cattle Price Discovery and Transparency bill of 2022.
• Getting tremendous push back from Big Business.
• Requires a minimum percent of meat packers to participate in live cash markets each week.

  Full interview is at Epoch.tv https://ept.ms/WarOnRanchersRM

[Varsity Flight]

Getting _______ _______ beef here.

Local.

[PeterPrinciple]

One honest politician at a meeting once said. “We’ve been trying to save the small farmer for 50 years now, have we gotten any closer to the goal?”

[9YearLurker]

Nicely done post: thanks for the summary.

[redcatcherb412]

It definitely pays to live rural with some rancher neighbors. Luckily livestock doesn’t require globalists to inseminate cattle and get a new batch of beef growing to be born in about 280 days, pork in about 114 days and chickens in 3 weeks. It will in the long run pay to have a few acres, a few animals and know a meat packer locally. Folks in the high rises in the city will have to buy Bill Gates fake meat.

[Lazamataz]

We are so screwed.

[Dogbert41]

It’s more important to save the morons who borrowed to go to a Communist Propaganda camp, otherwise known as a “higher education institution”. When it comes down to it, they’ll eat anything.

[Dawgreg]

I’ve seen more family cattle companies advertising here recently.....we’ve looked into a few. Need to check out and see if a meat company we used years ago are still in business. I wonder if Nolan Ryan is still selling his own cattle...I buy it over other meat just because of his name. I dunno if he sold out and they just use his name....????

[McGavin999]

The fact is, it’s only the small farmer who can save us

[mcjordansc]

Sometimes I am confused by the posts here. Do we support free enterprise or more federal regulations? The only way we break up monopolies like this is by imposing the latter and I have a feeling if that happened we would see posts decrying it.

[Brian Griffin]

A supermarket chain could help set up a new and independent processing plant.

[SaxxonWoods]

I’ve got about 65 head, it’s all good.

[DannyTN]

Well we have anti-trust laws on the books that were supposed to prevent monopolies. But both parties lost interest in enforcing them.

The pending legislation is indeed more regulation, but it's of a nature that forces a portion of the cattle to be purchased at open live auction, if I understand it correctly.

That wouldn't break up the monopolies, but it would help set a fairer market price for cattle, helping both the smaller ranchers and the smaller meat packers.

And yes, you would see some people rail against it.

I was really disappointed when the country of origin laws were repealed. Because there are countries I don't want to buy their products, either because they aren't safe, like Chinese products, or because the country is a dictatorship or communist country or terrorist supporting state.

We need to:

• Drop out of the WTO if we can't reform it. We wouldn't have a problem establishing new trade agreements with other countries.
• Restore the country of origin labeling.
• Break up the monopolies. No more than 4% nationally and no more than 3% regionally, 6 regions. That would result in at least 25 companies. That's not an unreasonable amount for a country our size. That's 1 for every 2 states.
• Limit foreign ownership of US Agriculture and food production, and land.
• Restore the protective tariffs that served our country well for 180 years.

[Pollard]

I’m in beef cattle country in Missouri. These producers take their cattle to the auction and the buyers pay whatever the market is paying. “The market” is the Intl conglomerates. The price is around $2/lb and then the cattle go to a feed lot and gain a bunch of weight. 20-25% maybe? Then they go to the slaughterhouses and onto the grocery stores where it’s $5/lb for ground and $15-18 for ribeye/t-bone etc.

Beef in the stores here is crap compared to when I lived in Florida. The good stuff gets sent to the coasts and cities.

Missouri has a state meat processor inspection program and I can buy beef from a local farm/processor and the beef quality is much better. I don’t know if it’s strictly grass fed or if they give a little grain towards the end. The price is only slightly more than the grocery store.

We need more of this in any state where it’s allowed. I think there are 27 states that have state meat processor inspection programs that supplant USDA. I don’t know about the legality of them selling to grocery stores within the state.

Most of the beef cattle producers around here have another gig. Closest one to me does dozer work and close to full time because as he says, there’s no money in farming.

The other farm where I can buy meat seems to be making a good living and doesn’t need to leave the farm and go run a dozer.

It’s yet another thing that the people need to fix from the bottom up. I drove by hundreds of head of beef cattle to find empty meat dept shelves at the grocery store in Spring 2020. That’s stupid.

[Brian Griffin]

The government has fined a rancher $300000 for not participating in inspect.

Once government meddles, it has a duty to ensure fairness, IMO.

When one can’t describe what is fair, then an effective market must, which requires effective competition.

[SaveFerris]

Yeah but just on food, gasoline, etc .

[Envisioning]

Buy now and harvest your own meat when you can (((Ping))) …..

[Brian Griffin]

Beef quality has gone downhill.

The big corporations insisted on high quality for years.

I’m not sure why things changed.

[Brian Griffin]

The WTO can’t give the US government the power to violate Amendment I.

Fraud as to origin is a tort. Lawyers to the courthouses.

[kaktuskid]

Tyson is based in Arkansas…old man Tyson was a booster of the Clintons.