From the Offices of:
Organization for Competitive Markets
R-CALF USA
For Immediate Release: Contacts:
May 23, 2002 OCM: Michael Stumo: 860-379-6199
NC: Greg Ruehle: 402-475-2333
R-CALF USA: Bill Bullard: 406-252-2516
Billings, MT--Upwards of 400 cattle and hog producers from 14 states met in Omaha, Nebraska last week to participate in the 2002 Livestock Price Crisis Meeting. The Organization for Competitive Markets (OCM), Nebraska Cattlemen, and the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA), jointly called the meeting on short notice. The meeting’s purpose was to identify problems in U.S. livestock markets and to identify solutions with a strategy to achieve those solutions.
Attendees at the Omaha meeting offered and passed a number of resolutions to identify market problems as well as their solutions. The attendees passed the following resolutions:
1) Captive supplies of livestock are the largest marketing problem in the livestock industry and should be ended. Captive supplies include packer owned livestock and other sales where the livestock are not negotiated and priced prior to delivery.
2) The group calls upon the United States Senate to hold a comprehensive investigation into competition in the wholesale and retail red meat markets. The investigatory body should have subpoena power, possess full funding to hire legal counsel, and pursue any legal action recommended.
3) Competitive problems in the livestock industry are caused, in large part, by the Concentration of the large meat packers and retailers. This concentration should be remedied by a break up of the dominant firms in meatpacking and retail food sales.
4) The group hereby expresses its extreme disappointment in the Conference Committee because it did not include the Competition Title in the Farm Bill.
5) The group hereby expresses its strong support of the plaintiffs and attorneys in the Pickett v. IBP class action case, as well as to the plaintiffs and attorneys in the newly filed civil court actions entitled Murdoch v. Excel and Lueking v. ConAgra.
6) The USDA grade stamp should be denied to red meat products that are not born, raised and slaughtered in the United States.
7) The United States should impose a two-year moratorium on all imports of beef and cattle due to hazards of biosecurity and food safety.
At the close of the meeting, the attendees directed the three sponsoring groups to prioritize the resolutions, reduce them to a manageable few, and to develop an effective strategy to address the core market problems identified at the meeting.
Subsequently, the three groups met and agreed that captive supplies are significantly interfering with the competitive operation of today’s livestock markets. The groups further agreed that they should continue working with livestock producers to explore meaningful options that would effectively end this practice.
The three groups also agreed that buyer-side concentration, at both the wholesale and retail level, is an issue of serious concern to the industry and, therefore, warrants further attention. According to the groups, a congressional investigation may be the best tool to evaluate the operational effects of buyer-side concentration as well as to help identify the best means of addressing this issue.
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