I don't think there is a simple answer as to who is to blame for the broken markets.
I think the underlying reason is that the retailers have too much leverage against the packers because of lack of competition at the retailers level. 1000 large, independently owned and operated stores buying meat will provide some real competition for our product. 1000 Walmarts will not.
The packers can manipulate the markets for several reasons. They can use their owned cattle to kill price hikes when supplies tighten up. Furthermore, making deals with large scale feedlots drives the smaller producers out of business. The big feedlot thinks it is doing well when it is making $30 bucks a head. The small producer with 500 (or even less) head will starve at that rate.
And I do not believe that packers are necessarily making huge profits except for in unusual circumstances like BSE markets. Even then, they are doing what comes naturally to a corporation - putting profits ahead of principles. There is no such thing as "corporate conscience".
The producers carry their share in that most of us have believed that to make more money or improve the bottom line, we must expand production.
Wrong. We have only oversupplied a shrinking market. Plus, by concentrating greater numbers into fewer hands, we have given the buyers the ability to do a better job of divide and conquer. Furthermore, if you can't make a profit on x number of cattle, why would you think you can make more on 10x head?
I believe that to "fix" the markets, there must be action taken to break the stranglehold that the mega retailers have on the meat industry as that would allow more smaller packers to enter the market for live cattle in order to supply the growing number of smaller retail buyers.
Instead what we have happening is a constantly tightening of regulatory nooses that choke off any entrepreneurial efforts. And these regs only help the big packers.
And this does not even bring into the equation the fight for share against cheaper pork and chicken. . . . .