Ranchers and range owners have decided to take a stand to save their traditions. Life on the wide open plain isn’t the cowboy’s dream it used to be. It would be better if they could at least get paid enough to make a real living.
A stand for survival
If ranchers don’t make a stand now the results could be disastrous. Publicly available federal data shows that back in the ancient history of the 1970’s, “for every dollar spent on food, the share that went to ranchers and farmers” was around 35 cents. Today, they’re lucky to pocket 14 cents on the dollar.
That sounds bad but it gets worse, when you adjust for inflation. What you could buy for $1 in 1970 costs $7.07 today. That means in today’s buying power, ranchers were taking home $2.47 of that $7.07 while today’s are stuck with 14 cents.
The frustrated cow ranchers can’t survive unless they take a stand to carve out a niche for themselves in the industry dominated by only 4 megalithic corporate players. The decades long trend of “consolidation” has squeezed the family farms and ranches right out of business.
In a move to reverse the crippling trend, they’re banding together and “planning to open new slaughterhouses.” An “average 1,370-pound steer is worth about $1,630, but that value must be divided between the slaughterhouse, feed lot and the rancher, who typically bears the largest expense of raising the animal for more than a year.”
Rusty Kemp decided to stop grumbling and join other ranchers across the country in taking a stand. Griping about “rock-bottom prices paid for the cattle he raised in central Nebraska” didn’t do any good, even as he watched the price spike at the grocery store.
The general consensus of all his neighbors blames the whole problem on “consolidation in the beef industry stretching back to the 1970s that resulted in four companies slaughtering over 80% of the nation’s cattle.” It might not be a monopoly but it’s real close.
Processors hold the power
The situation didn’t crop up suddenly. It’s one of those gradual “boil the frog” kind of insidious creep kind of things. Day by day the processors grabbed more power to set the prices “while ranchers struggled to make a living.” They decided to take a stand and fight it out.
Kemp came up with the idea and everyone climbed on board. Their “audacious” plan is to gather “more than $300 million from ranchers” as capital to “build a plant themselves, putting their future in their own hands.”
It’s long overdue, Kemp insists. “We’ve been complaining about it for 30 years. It’s probably time somebody does something about it.” The tough stand is beginning to pay off.
“Crews will start work this fall building the Sustainable Beef plant on nearly 400 acres near North Platte, Nebraska.” The goal is for the project to give others a working roadmap to do it other places.
The success of the stand by Nebraska ranchers has inspired other groups to make “similar surprising moves in Iowa, Idaho and Wisconsin.” They plan to give Cargill, JBS, Tyson Foods and National Beef Packing a run for their money, literally.
David Briggs, the CEO of Sustainable Beef declares, “cattle people are risk takers and they’re ready to take a risk.” They aren’t out to drive the big guys out of business, “they say they will have important advantages, including more modern equipment and, they hope, less employee turnover thanks to slightly higher pay.”
