Allegations of meatpacker collusion rise as independent ranchers struggle to survive

[Budi]

THIS is why Farmers/Ranchers unionizing grew greatly in the 50's 60's.
To prevent corporations from squeezing their profits.
Corporations via the Republican lead Farm Bureau, sought laws that resulted in big profits for corps while markets paid farmers often less than what it cost to grow, harvest & sell crops for an entire season.
Farmers & ranchers formed a union early on, with voting power called The National Farmers Union.
They both still operate today. Republican big money vs Democratic backed small growers/ranchers in the midwest states.

Sens Hubert Humphrey, Ted Kennedy, Byron Dorgan, Kent Conrad, Tom Daschle, and many other Democratic leaders fought some hard, long years against corporate profits.
________________________

At a time of calls of a looming 'scarcity of food', it is not the small individual grower who stands to profit.
(We've been down this road before)

https://amp.greatfallstribune.com/amp/3048669001

Allegations of meatpacker collusion rise as independent ranchers struggle to survive


On April 17, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue rolled out a $19 billion relief plan, ordered by President Trump, that will provide $5.1 billion in direct payments to American ranchers hit hard by more than five years of slumping cattle prices and packing plant closures.

Eleven days later the President evoked a Korean War-era law to declare U.S. meat processing plants "critical infrastructure," and shielding meatpacking corporations from legal liability for workers sickened on the job by the coronavirus.

These actions are backlit by a rising chorus of demands that the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Justice investigate alleged collusion within the meatpacking industry, and bipartisan criticism of the Trump administration's decision to kill regulation meant to protect farmers and ranchers from unfair trade practices.


The crash in commodity prices has the potential to push many small farmers and ranchers over the edge of financial solvency.

“Without immediate assistance, many more family farms could be forced out of business, which would devastate rural communities and threaten our food supply,” said Rob Larew, president of the National Farmers Union. “We appreciate the administration’s commitment to help farmers weather this storm."

SNIP
On May 5, 11 states' attorneys general, including Montana AG Tim Fox, signed a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr calling for the Justice Department to investigate the possibility that price-fixing could be the common element behind rising retail beef costs and declining producer profits.


“Given the concentrated market structure of the beef industry, it may be particularly susceptible to market manipulation, particularly during times of food insecurity, such as the current COVID-19 crisis,” the attorneys general wrote.


While corporate packers work to restock grocery store shelves, scarcity has doubled the price of choice cuts of beef over the past two months.
At the same time the price paid to ranchers and feedlot owners for cattle on the hoof has dropped nearly 30% - briefly falling below $1 per pound before rebounding slightly in the first weeks of May.

[Historic NY]

1. Talk about socialism...

add up all they received previously. Aren't the Republicans worried they will just sit in their kitchens having coffee.
Meanwhile in the plants that kill and process the meat.....they don't give a shit.

Farmers are killing their hogs, dumping their milk, tossing their eggs, but they collect. No Government action to get this food to overseas markets , no airlifts to parts of our own country where its in demand. We did have flyovers, they could have easily loaded aircraft. Mostly the fleet of C117's have been idle after moving medical. Worst run war by the worst ever IMPOTUS .

[Budi]

2. Socialism.

Definition of socialism
: a way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies


Yup. That's pretty much what independent owned small farms/ranches have fought in the battle against corporations, and why unionization became their necessary means of independent survival.

Corporations may as well be owned by the govt since they are the 1st to be given a financial advantage in any crisis, whether it affects their bottom line or not.

As in this very situation written in the article above.

In this case they aren't even getting back enough to sustain the small properties they own.

[benld74]

3. Welfare for corporations