What's happening to our cattle industry? (renting, attorney, school)

[Klapton]

Originally Posted by MTSilvertip

One small ray of hope I do see is the resurgance of people buying a small place of 2 or 3 or 10 acres, and homesteading by raising their own chickens or rabbits, maybe a cow or pig, planting a huge garden and trying their best to be self sufficent.

This tells me the agricultural spirit isn't dead, which is a good thing. It has evolved into people taking the principal of the homestead from the 1860s where they could get 160 acres of land if they lived on it for 7 years, and translating it into buying the amount of land they can afford and doing their best to become self sufficent.

This is my plan. First to feed ourselves as much as possible, and possibly use our surpluses for a CSA or to sell at farmer's markets or a roadside stand.

[marmac]

Having "homesteaders" move to Montana, buy..."2 or 3 or 10 acres"....have ...."maybe a cow or a pig".... sounds so warm and fuzzy.

It, however, will do nothing to help the problem in the title of this thread--------What's happening to our cattle industry

[flyingcat2k]

I did notice that Wal-mart made a first appearance in labeling. It had to switch sourcing from US-Canada-Mexico to just US-Canada. What I have not seen is the impact of the Wal-mart "Auto-butcher" listed as a cause here. This may not impact cattle futures as much but it has a direct impact on the price of boxed beef.

For those who don't know of the "Auto-butcher", a Wal-mart butcher department in Texas voted to join a union. Once this occurred and the decision upheld but the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Wal-mart fired or reassigned all butchers and ended having actual butcher departments in its stores. The "Auto-butcher" is a process that has the slaughterhouse cut the meat into steaks or ground round and then ship to the stores directly. It was approved just 1 month before the NLRB decision and Wal-mart immediately chose this process for it's meat supply nationwide.

While this was in 2000, I think it did have an indirect action on beef prices as quality standards are lower for the "Auto-butcher". Everything arrives in pre-packed styrofoam containers that are in a freezer until put on display. Shoppers have had 9-10 years of this and really don't know what meat is supposed to look like or taste like. Basically, until US consumers wise up and realize they are being sold Select quality beef at Choice prices, the cattle industry won't get the 1-2 cents a pound it needs to be profitable.

[Klapton]

Originally Posted by marmac

Having "homesteaders" move to Montana, buy..."2 or 3 or 10 acres"....have ...."maybe a cow or a pig".... sounds so warm and fuzzy.

It, however, will do nothing to help the problem in the title of this thread--------What's happening to our cattle industry

It might help with an even larger problem: people depending on an "industry" for their food. I certainly don't have any ill-will toward commercial ranchers. I eat beef from the supermarket. I am their customer too.

But you are right. People raising their own food will not help people who sell food to sell more.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by Klapton

It might help with an even larger problem: people depending on an "industry" for their food. I certainly don't have any ill-will toward commercial ranchers. I eat beef from the supermarket. I am their customer too.

Which is a problem anywhere there are cities. Raising a cow for your own use is perfectly doable in the country, but kinda hard to manage in a condo. And since around 98-99% of the population does live in towns and cities... the other 1 or 2 percent have to produce what feeds 'em. What happens when that last one or two percent can no longer make a living at it? THEN what do the city folks eat?

Goes the other way, too. If you're busy being a farmer or rancher, you sure don't have time to spin your own wool, weave your own cloth, cut and sew your own clothes... well, not if your kids are going to school instead of slaving away on the ol' homestead from the time they can walk. And you don't have the time or the skills to forge your own plow or build your own combine either. So today's farmers and ranchers are equally dependent on, or better described as symbiotic with, those city folks they're feeding.

"Industry" is a product of that specialization and symbiosis, and not an evil in itself. Unfortunately so much of our industry has gone overseas, that our own symbiosis is getting broken, and you can't make a living at ANY industry anymore. Where were your jeans made? Betcha it wasn't in the USA.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by flyingcat2k

The "Auto-butcher" is a process that has the slaughterhouse cut the meat into steaks or ground round and then ship to the stores directly. It was approved just 1 month before the NLRB decision and Wal-mart immediately chose this process for it's meat supply nationwide.

Not exactly a Wal-Mart thing, other than the direct shipment. All the chain groceries in CA, union or not (and probably most metro-ized areas of the country) have been getting their meat boned, partially precut, and boxed like that, with only minimal in-store cutting, for at least 30 years. And as you say, consequently most people have never seen really fresh meat, nor do they have any idea what it should taste like.

[marmac]

Originally Posted by Reziac

Not exactly a Wal-Mart thing, other than the direct shipment. All the chain groceries in CA, union or not (and probably most metro-ized areas of the country) have been getting their meat boned, partially precut, and boxed like that, with only minimal in-store cutting, for at least 30 years. And as you say, consequently most people have never seen really fresh meat, nor do they have any idea what it should taste like.

---for at least 30 years--

Yup, as I stated in an earlier post, it was 42 years ago when our packing plant got sold cuz the owner said it was no longer profitable to operate a " kill and chill" packing plant.

In the 50's and 60's many people were employed as beef luggers ( loading trucks with beef quarters)

I doubt there is much demand for beef luggers today.

[Reziac]

Originally Posted by marmac

Yup, as I stated in an earlier post, it was 42 years ago when our packing plant got sold cuz the owner said it was no longer profitable to operate a " kill and chill" packing plant.

Which would have been about the time the move toward corporate consolidation across the board really started taking hold, and eating up all the small producers in every industry.

So we're back to the question of how do we make it profitable again in today's market, to encourage local production and processing?? Not only beef, but anything that's a salable good?

[farmgirl82]

Originally Posted by mtboy

Anyway my two cents..... BUY AMERICAN BEEF. Support places that advertise using USA beef slogans, or Montana Beef, or Wyoming beef, etc. Do not support the places that don't either know, or don't care where their beef comes from. I also prefer the ones that advertise Black Angus beef, but that's what we raise... . Anyway it doesn't matter much as long as we support USA beef first.

Its interesting to see the same problems occur elsewhere in the world. Here where I`m from we have the same problem. People buy cheaper food produced in other countries.
So here we label all our meat. A consumer can find out exactly what ranch or farm the meat came from, where it was slaughtered and where it was processed. People like to know where their food come from, that the animal had good living conditions and that this is healthy animals whitch give the consumer healthy food. And that is a guarantee when the food is produced in our own country with our lables on it.

[MTSilvertip]

I see some don't think my earlier post re: people growing their own meat is addressing the industry as a whole, and while I can agree in a larger sense, but when I was a kid, small producers were the backbone of the industry.
Small family farms that only produced 20 to 50 feeder calves per year were the norm. If someone had over 100 cows, they were considered a large producer, 200 cows was a cattle baron.

If someone can own a small place of say 300 acres, and produce 25 calves a year and the hay to feed them, and if there are several of them, then you have a supply that can impact the market in an area.

Not a lot of people can own several thousand acres and produce 1000 to 1500 calves a year, so the market is more limited to who can become a rancher.

I was just looking at a very small piece of land, 116 acres, that had been carved from a larger place that had sold to a subdevelopment.
The land was very productive, but to raise more than 5 calves a year on it would break the covenants attached to the land.

Ag land that is now homesites with covenants really reduce the amount of land available for production, and without land, you can't raise any amount of livestock.

I would prefer it if land were zoned to be agricultural, just as it is zoned commercial or residential or light industry. A small family farm may not be as productive as the larger corporate places, but it grows more than food, it grows independent people.

Taxes on land based on what the subdevelopment next door was sold for is not realistic for ag land either. One place I know of in Big Timber sold into subdevelopment, and there is a piece of hayfield, 33 acres with a creek running through it, but the price on it is $530,000.00. No way a person could produce enough on it to pay for it, but worse, it means the land around it is assessed at that price for taxes which also puts a strain on the limited resources of the small rancher.
Environmental laws restricting the use and availablility of grazing land rented from the government means that the cost of pasture is artifically inflated and reduces the number of cattle that a place can run if they have to only rely on what they own. This also drives up costs.
Worst of all is the death tax that forces people to sell their land when the owner dies because the feds demand 1/2 the assessed value of the place in taxes. That really removes land from production.

When production land is removed from service, it restricts the availability to people of the option of becoming a rancher. When there isn't a feedlot to finish the calves within 500 miles, the cost of transporting the calves also starts figuring in, and when the markets are limited to 4 or 5 large packers, they set the price as demand is artifically controlled by a cartel.

If the cattle industry wants to expand, they need to increase the number of actual ranchers which increases the number of voters and support for ag related legislation. By working as a co-op the ranchers have the option of creating their own feedlots and or packing plants.

Aggresive marketing as has been done by the Angus association create specialty markets, and marketing niches for their product.

Limiting the import of meat grown with huge government subsidies in other countries would drive up the cost to the consumers, (not popular), but would also level the playing field to domestic producers, and by limiting supply you would balance supply of the product to the demand for the product.

Red meat has been demonized by the press as unhealthy, (which is real bs but bought by the uneducated consumers) which reduces demand, but if cattle associations actually were able to afford informational campaigns to educate the consumer, the demand would go up.

It wouldn't be an easy or quick process to revitalize the domestic production, but not impossible. It would take forward thinking people with vision and determination, but I don't think we are completely lost yet.

I think we could reverse the trend of family farms being sold into development and make our whole country self sufficent again, but it would take a huge amount of work.