skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Friday, March 29, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

MO Cattle Producers: More Competition Needed to Stay Profitable

play audio
Play

Friday, December 17, 2021   

Meat prices have been on the rise, but family-farm advocates say higher profits haven't been making their way to smaller cattle producers.

Four companies control 85% of the beef supply, noted Darvin Bentlage, a cattle rancher and farmer in southwest Missouri. He said the executive order on promoting competition that President Joe Biden signed last summer is a step in the right direction, and he urged Congress to follow it up with additional measures to benefit small cattle producers.

"We don't have any competition," he said. "We're often, on the farm, presented with a scenario of 'take it or leave it' prices. We don't get to name our price, and oftentimes, we get shorted in the long run."

Bentlage cited some policies he thinks would make a big difference for producers across the nation -- from requiring meatpackers to purchase 50% of their supply from the cash market, rather than entering futures contracts, to reinstating a requirement that meat processers adhere to country-of-origin labeling. Industry groups oppose those reforms, saying they would have unintended consequences for supply and demand.

Patty Lovera, a policy adviser with the Campaign for Family Farms and the Environment, said this isn't a new problem, and while ranchers and consumers are missing out, the corporate middlemen are not.

"If you're a producer who's raised animals the right way -- they're grass-fed, or pasture-based, small-scale, humane -- it's harder and harder for those folks to get their products to market because big corporate meatpackers don't want to deal with them," she said. "They want to deal with factory farms that are cranking out huge numbers of animals."

She urged lawmakers not to let up on market competition reform. The renewed calls for action follow a recent White House report showing the larger meat-processing companies are recording massive profits amid inflation issues. Those companies counter that they're being made scapegoats as prices rise.

Disclosure: Campaign for Family Farms & the Environment contributes to our fund for reporting on Environment, Rural/Farming, Social Justice, Sustainable Agriculture. If you would like to help support news in the public interest, click here.


get more stories like this via email
more stories
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week about the popular abortion pill Mifepristone and will weigh in on whether the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was correct in how it can be dosed and prescribed. (Ascannio/Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Missouri residents are worried about future access to birth control. The latest survey from The Right Time, an initiative based in Missouri…


Social Issues

play sound

Wisconsin children from low-income families are now on track to get nutritious foods over the summer. Federal officials have approved the Badger …

Social Issues

play sound

Almost 2,900 people are unsheltered on any given night in the Beehive State. Gov. Spencer Cox is celebrating signing nine bills he says are geared …


The U.S. teaching workforce remains primarily white while the percentage of Black teachers has declined. However, the percentage of Asian and Latinx teachers is rising.(WavebreakMediaMicro/Adobestock)

Social Issues

play sound

Education advocates are calling on lawmakers to increase funding for programs to combat the teacher shortage. Around 37% of schools nationwide …

Environment

play sound

New York's Legislature is considering a bill to get clean-energy projects connected to the grid faster. It's called the RAPID Act, for "Renewable …

Social Issues

play sound

Earlier this month, a new Arizona Public Service rate hike went into effect and one senior advocacy group said those on a fixed income may struggle …

Social Issues

play sound

Michigan recently implemented a significant juvenile justice reform package following recommendations from a task force made up of prosecutors…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021