Brett Crosby currently serves as Region IV Director for the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association, representing Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado. He taps into the current trends in the beef market from a producer side, and I couldn’t have said it any better than he has in his opinion piece in Northern Ag Network. Here’s Brett: A blog post published by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on July 12, 2022, claimed that Congress is “rushing” to consider “aggressive...
Read More »The Impending Doom, Gloom, and Fiery Crash of Independent Meat Processors
Market consolidation is nowhere near revolutionary news these days, as we have seen meat processing plants loom ever larger. Sitting right outside of major or semi-major metropoles, freshly frozen stock of proteins are brought in at all hours of the day and night to sell at a meat retail counter in all large chain grocers around the country. This has more or less been the model since the 1980s where corporate consolidation, mergers, acquisitions, and...
Read More »Sherman Act, Part 2: The Small Farmer Pitchfork Army
Agricultual Economist and Farmer Michael Smith, Sherman Act, Part 2: The Small Farmer Pitchfork Army Most are now aware of the Biden Administrations recent announcement and press briefing for a plan to combat prices in the meat industry. If not, you can find a bit of information here: Readout of President Joe Biden’s Event with Farmers, “Ranchers on his Action Plan for a More Competitive Meat and Poultry Supply Chain“ And you can also see...
Read More »“Quit Your Whining” – Economists to Cattle Ranchers
Author, Farmer, and Economist Michael Smith briefly talking returns to Cattle Ranchers and profits to meat processors and retail. The beef industry is under fire, we’ve been seeing this for years. We first saw where Smithfield has taken over whole towns for pork production, vertically integrating as much as possible, even to take a cut of the feed grain market in those towns. This provides the blueprint for a bigger industry, beef. Matt...
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