Consumers are victim

It’s The Jungle 2017. This time it’s a political, financial and marketing boondoggle. Forty-one percent of U.S. cattle producers have gone out of business since 1980. And consumers, you are the victims again.

I sold a heifer recently for $500 that would have brought $1,500-$1,700 two years ago, yet there’s been no decline in retail prices of beef for consumers. The giant meatpackers and Congress are to blame. Antitrust laws were not enforced; now we have four giant meatpackers that process 85 percent of all beef. Farmers must now rely on a 1921 law to protect them from the unfair monopolistic power of the packers. Yet enforcement has become a monumental task for officials because of the money influence wielded by the giant packers.

The heifer I sold turned into a $3,740 retail product for consumers. It’s abuse of everyone. Furthermore, the meatpackers trade association cleverly merged with the National Cattlemen’s Association in 1996, calling itself the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, acting as a Trojan horse for the packers. Their “spin” is that “we are the largest association of cattle producers—the voice of cattlemen.” Yet their positions on most important issues are almost exclusively in the best interest of packers, not cattlemen.

Time to stand up and be counted. If you would like to help farmers and purchase beef raised in the USA, good luck. Congress removed the Country of Origin labeling requirement on beef in 2015 (after which our cattle market crashed); it was just too expensive for the packers. To top it off, the national association worked hard for its removal. A USDA stamp does not mean the product was raised in the USA.

If we don’t deserve to have “fair practice” rules for farmers, nor our USA-origin label on beef, then we don’t have an America. It really is still The Jungle. GRANT WILLIAMS Harrison