Record beef prices, but ranchers aren’t cashing in
Mergers have decreased their selling power
SHEPHERD, MONT. >> Judging from the prices at supermarkets and restaurants, this would appear to be a lucrative moment for cattle ranchers like Steve Charter.
America is consuming more beef than ever, while prices have climbed by onefifth over the past year — a primary driver for the growing alarm over inflation.
But somewhere between American dinner plates and his 8,000-acre ranch on the high plains of Montana, Charter’s share of the $66 billion beef cattle industry has gone missing.
A third-generation cattle rancher, Charter, 69, is accustomed to working seven days a week, 365 days a year — in winter temperatures descending to minus 40, and in summer swelter reaching 110 degrees.
On a recent morning, he rumbled up a snow-crusted dirt road in his feed truck, delivering a mixture of grains to his herd of mother cows and calves. They roam a landscape that seems unbounded — grassland dotted by sagebrush, the horizons stretching beyond distant buttes.
Charter has long imagined his six grandchildren continuing his way of life. But with no profits in five years, he is pondering the fate that has befallen more than a half-million other American ranchers in recent decades: selling off his herd.
“We are contemplating getting out,” Charter said, his voice catching as he choked back tears. “We are not getting our share of the consumer dollars.”
The distress of American cattle ranchers represents the underside of the staggering winnings harvested by the conglomerates that dominate the meatpacking industry — Tyson Foods and
Cargill, plus a pair of companies controlled by Brazilian corporate owners, National Beef Packing Co. and JBS.
Since the 1980s, the four largest meatpackers have used a wave of mergers to increase their share of the market from 36% to 85%, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Their dominance has allowed them to extinguish competition and dictate prices, exploiting how federal authorities have weakened the enforcement of laws enacted a century ago to tame the excesses of the robber barons, say antitrust experts and advocates for the ranchers.