GUEST EDITORIAL
FOR REPRINT
April, 20 2006
Big meatpackers manipulate global beef trade
By Mike Callicrate
Never before have so many people been exploited
U.S. cattle producers aren't selling beef to Japan, but the biggest U.S. based beef packers are.
Tyson and Cargill are approved to export to Japan from their Canadian plants and Swift has access to Japan from their Australia Meat Holdings.*
"Swift Australia continues to capitalize on the void left by the absence of North American beef in the Asian marketplace," said John N. Simons, President and CEO of Swift and Company in April 2005.
Cargill hasn't been hurt by the loss of the Asian export market as they continue to sell out of their High River, Alberta, Canada plant.
The single largest impact on packer/retailer beef profitability is the cost of live cattle. The U.S. live cattle market is the biggest and best beef consuming market in the world and sets the world price, so isn't it in the best interest of the packers to lower the U.S. price as much as possible?
If the big packers can keep the Japanese market closed to the U.S., while dumping their inferior, mostly non-inspected foreign beef and cattle imports into the U.S. market, they hurt smaller U.S. packing competitors and are better able to lower U.S. cattle prices, thereby dropping cattle prices globally.
Why does USDA keep the export markets closed to Japan by refusing to allow testing for Mad Cow? Because the big packers don't want competition from smaller, higher quality packers like Creekstone, and because they don't want the premium export market reopened for the U.S., driving up their biggest cost - cattle.
So where does USDA's arrogance and disrespect for the highly valued Japanese customer come from? Why do the USDA and the big packers refuse to deliver what the Japanese customer wants? Like any business organization, the USDA's offensive personality comes from their leadership and bosses – the big packers.
We know from the white paper, *"USDA Inc.", that the big packers run USDA - from writing the rules for HACCP, mandatory price reporting and country of origin labeling. We know from the recent *GAO report that the packer run USDA is ignoring market protecting antitrust laws.
Packers and retailers win, everyone else loses
Market leader Tyson is demanding a 13.25% return on their investment in order for John Tyson, CEO & Chairman, to receive his bonus. Much of the unreasonable profit demand is coming via their Lakeside Packers plant at Brooks, Alberta, Canada where cattle are cheap and the lucrative export markets are now open. Demanding a 13.25% return in a commodity market mandates that abusive political and market power be applied aggressively, from playing countries against each other through global trade to abusing workers to leveraging captive cattle supplies. What is easier for Tyson: selling beef to Wal-Mart at higher prices, or buying cattle from powerless independent farmers and ranchers for less? After all, most farmers and ranchers have no other market and are desperate to sell what they produce to survive financially.
The big packers and retailers are standing on the neck of producers everywhere while picking consumers pockets. They have rigged the market into a fool's game, quietly cheering and sneering at all of us who have naively trusted that the economic system is fair.
Independent producers and consumers are easy prey. Producers only hope to farm and ranch, raise healthy families and live in rural communities that aren't being starved of a fair and stable income. Consumers just want good food at affordable prices.
Never before have so many people been exploited. Never before has food quality and food safety been so lacking. Never before have the markets been so concentrated and unfair.
One hundred years ago, Upton Sinclair's "Jungle 1906" described a powerful and dangerous beef trust standing between producers of livestock and consumers. We have an even more powerful beef trust today scamming the public and playing games with the common good to accomplish their own self-serving ends.
Perhaps some of the same solutions to the Jungle of 1906 should be applied today.
* The following webpage states that the following Canadian establishments are eligible, as of February 20, 2006, to export beef products to Japan: 38, 51, 93, 96, 136, 235A, 523, 597. http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/meavia/mmopmmhv/chap11/jape.shtml
You can look up the establishments' names at : http://active.inspection.gc.ca/active/reglst/RegResults.asp?l=E
Among the establishments eligible to export beef to Japan are Lakeside Packers, Brooks, Alberta; Cargill Canada, Guelph, Ontario; Cargill Foods.
* USDA Inc.: How Agribusiness has hijacked regulatory policy at the US Department of Agriculture: http://www.agribusinessaccountability.org/page/325/1
*Office of Inspector General audit on Packers and Stockyards can be seen at: http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/30601-01-HY.pdf
FOR REPRINT
April, 20 2006
Big meatpackers manipulate global beef trade
By Mike Callicrate
Never before have so many people been exploited
U.S. cattle producers aren't selling beef to Japan, but the biggest U.S. based beef packers are.
Tyson and Cargill are approved to export to Japan from their Canadian plants and Swift has access to Japan from their Australia Meat Holdings.*
"Swift Australia continues to capitalize on the void left by the absence of North American beef in the Asian marketplace," said John N. Simons, President and CEO of Swift and Company in April 2005.
Cargill hasn't been hurt by the loss of the Asian export market as they continue to sell out of their High River, Alberta, Canada plant.
The single largest impact on packer/retailer beef profitability is the cost of live cattle. The U.S. live cattle market is the biggest and best beef consuming market in the world and sets the world price, so isn't it in the best interest of the packers to lower the U.S. price as much as possible?
If the big packers can keep the Japanese market closed to the U.S., while dumping their inferior, mostly non-inspected foreign beef and cattle imports into the U.S. market, they hurt smaller U.S. packing competitors and are better able to lower U.S. cattle prices, thereby dropping cattle prices globally.
Why does USDA keep the export markets closed to Japan by refusing to allow testing for Mad Cow? Because the big packers don't want competition from smaller, higher quality packers like Creekstone, and because they don't want the premium export market reopened for the U.S., driving up their biggest cost - cattle.
So where does USDA's arrogance and disrespect for the highly valued Japanese customer come from? Why do the USDA and the big packers refuse to deliver what the Japanese customer wants? Like any business organization, the USDA's offensive personality comes from their leadership and bosses – the big packers.
We know from the white paper, *"USDA Inc.", that the big packers run USDA - from writing the rules for HACCP, mandatory price reporting and country of origin labeling. We know from the recent *GAO report that the packer run USDA is ignoring market protecting antitrust laws.
Packers and retailers win, everyone else loses
Market leader Tyson is demanding a 13.25% return on their investment in order for John Tyson, CEO & Chairman, to receive his bonus. Much of the unreasonable profit demand is coming via their Lakeside Packers plant at Brooks, Alberta, Canada where cattle are cheap and the lucrative export markets are now open. Demanding a 13.25% return in a commodity market mandates that abusive political and market power be applied aggressively, from playing countries against each other through global trade to abusing workers to leveraging captive cattle supplies. What is easier for Tyson: selling beef to Wal-Mart at higher prices, or buying cattle from powerless independent farmers and ranchers for less? After all, most farmers and ranchers have no other market and are desperate to sell what they produce to survive financially.
The big packers and retailers are standing on the neck of producers everywhere while picking consumers pockets. They have rigged the market into a fool's game, quietly cheering and sneering at all of us who have naively trusted that the economic system is fair.
Independent producers and consumers are easy prey. Producers only hope to farm and ranch, raise healthy families and live in rural communities that aren't being starved of a fair and stable income. Consumers just want good food at affordable prices.
Never before have so many people been exploited. Never before has food quality and food safety been so lacking. Never before have the markets been so concentrated and unfair.
One hundred years ago, Upton Sinclair's "Jungle 1906" described a powerful and dangerous beef trust standing between producers of livestock and consumers. We have an even more powerful beef trust today scamming the public and playing games with the common good to accomplish their own self-serving ends.
Perhaps some of the same solutions to the Jungle of 1906 should be applied today.
* The following webpage states that the following Canadian establishments are eligible, as of February 20, 2006, to export beef products to Japan: 38, 51, 93, 96, 136, 235A, 523, 597. http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/meavia/mmopmmhv/chap11/jape.shtml
You can look up the establishments' names at : http://active.inspection.gc.ca/active/reglst/RegResults.asp?l=E
Among the establishments eligible to export beef to Japan are Lakeside Packers, Brooks, Alberta; Cargill Canada, Guelph, Ontario; Cargill Foods.
* USDA Inc.: How Agribusiness has hijacked regulatory policy at the US Department of Agriculture: http://www.agribusinessaccountability.org/page/325/1
*Office of Inspector General audit on Packers and Stockyards can be seen at: http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/30601-01-HY.pdf
