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Canadian Cattlemen May 20, 2021

Writer: Steve DittmerSteve Dittmer



Are we headed for government-run packers?


You folks up north might remember when President Obama and the labour unions took over General Motors. People started referring to GM as Government Motors.


Well, we’ve got folks who want to turn our packers into quasi-government packing companies. After all, if the government is going to tell packers how to buy cattle, how many to buy from how many feeders and by what method each week, that’s very close to running the company. And that’s on a packing industry already very heavily regulated.


Packers already have government food safety regs, labour union regs in many plants, reams of data to furnish under the Mandatory Price Reporting law, and myriad reporting rules for publicly traded companies, etc.


There is one thing we know about regulations. The more government piles them on, the bigger the advantage for bigger operators with deeper pockets and the more the smaller operators are disadvantaged or driven out of business. One of the co-sponsors of a bill down here to force packers to buy more cattle on a negotiated cash basis actually cited a “lack of processing facilities” in his state as a reason for piling on more regulation and further hampering processors in their ability to buy cattle and sell beef.


There is no requirement for people who want to run for Congress to have any knowledge of economics and logic.


There are two bills in Congress right now that severely threaten the future of our beef industry. One (Grassley bill) would mandate each plant to buy 50 per cent of its slaughter needs each week via negotiated cash vs. contracting or any type of Alternative Marketing Arrangement (AMA). The other bill would have the government set regional percentage targets that each plant would have to hit on a weekly basis, as well as requiring a minimum number of transactions.


In other words, the government would severely limit the very tools that cattle producers themselves devised, with the help of the packers, to take the beef industry from grading a little over 50 per cent Choice just a few years ago to 80 to 90 per cent Choice and Prime today. Prime alone has gone from one or two per cent of the harvest to eight to 10 per cent, an astonishing 4X jump. Along with that, the consistency and predictability of our beef has become remarkably better.


I don’t think our industry appreciates how lucky we have been. Just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic pushing people to order beef at retail online and from restaurant takeout — all sight unseen — we’ve been in position to deliver the best beef eating experience at any time in history. Our past hard work paid off.


And the government wants to screw that up...


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Profile image of Executive Vice President Steve Dittmer of Agribusiness Freedom Foundation

Steve Dittmer | Executive Vice President

Steve Dittmer has over 45 years of experience in management, marketing, and communications in the beef industry.

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