R-calf members have got a choice they can sit back and waste money on court cases and moan and complain or get out and get it done before the packers and retailers do it themselves. Branding is the way of the future and the reatilers are already starting to "brand" their own product, beating the producer to the counter. These articles are from 2002, all the fear mongering about safety etc. will only speed up what is talk about in them.
Smith (2000c) reported that Reg Clause (Iowa cow/calf operator) said "Cattle producers should approach production and marketing as
'teams,' creating alliances that can do more to capture higher prices and profitability for members in a group than producers can do for
themselves individually. Alliances decrease exposure to market risks and volatility, and help producers respond to competition from
other protein sectors and to consolidation, especially in the retail sector, which has been felt all the way back to the farm gate. Alliances
also get producers away from cash, or spot, markets that are definitely not to their advantage; cash markets are predatory and have little
relation to true value, providing therefore, little reason to improve product value. Alliances can not only coordinate genetic, health,
nutrition and management practices to add value but can provide beef suitable for 'branding' which adds more value, revenues and
return" (Smith, 2000c).
Roger Blackwell (Ohio State University) said "Certainly, producers can continue to produce and sell cattle 'the old way,' but those
producers won't be as successful as those who acknowledge that they must change to meet consumer demands, which will take
alliances or partnerships"
However, the demands driving the beef industry toward vertical coordination, according to Ritchie (2001b), are:
(1) Branded Products With Specific Attributes,
(2) Enhanced Risk Management,
(3) Transfer Of Information—Up And Down The Beef Production Chain,
(4) Food Safety, and
(5) Quality Attributes (National Cattlemen's Beef Association, 2001).
Purcell (2002b) says "Demand for beef and pork started a decline in the late 1970s that didn't bottom until 1995 for pork, and 1998 for
beef. The idea that the price-driven system would send signals along the supply chain so producers would change to match consumer
preferences simply did not work; it was clear that the price-driven systems would not generate the necessary coordination and quality
control. Contracts, pricing grids, marketing agreements, producer-initiated vertical alliances and even packer ownership of genetics and
production facilities are replacing the failed pricing system. Now, in 2002, grassroot level concerns about livestock industry
concentration, contracts and alliances appear to be growing, and may threaten progress that is being made on the demand side of the
pork and beef equation."
Purcell (2002b) reported that processors invested billions of new dollars in technology as well as product and
market development during the 1990s, and argued that those investments are more important to producers than to the middlemen in the beef and pork system.
Henderson (2002) said, as changes in agriculture and the livestock industries have squeezed smaller operators,
many have sought solutions to their worsening economic plight by:
(a) Criticizing concentration and vertical integration.
(b) Complaining about imports of cattle and beef from foreign countries.
(c) Seeking relief from Congress and the courts (e.g, the Johnson Amendment, country-of-origin labeling, RCALF and LMA lawsuits,
etc.).
Henderson (2002) said "The demise of the little man in our industry is not because the big players have grown big, the big players have
grown because they are willing to change to meet the demands of a changing business climate. There remain many opportunities for the
little man in our industry but they don't include fighting to maintain an outdated commodity business. Opportunities lie in identifying
products that are in demand, and producing for those markets."
