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President-elect Trump is now a convicted felon; At least 10 dead and whole neighborhoods destroyed in LA firestorms; Local concerns rise over Ohio's hydrogen project; New MI legislator rings in the new year with the pending new law; Ohio River Basin would get federal protection under the new legislation.

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House lawmakers take aim at the International Criminal Court, former President Jimmy Carter is laid to rest in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, and another fight looms over the Affordable Care Act.

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"Drill, baby, drill" is a tough sell for oil and gas companies in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, rising sea levels create struggles for Washington's coastal communities, and more folks than ever are taking advantage of America's great outdoors.

AR ranchers want a bigger cut from beef industry

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Tuesday, September 3, 2024   

The price of beef could be on the minds of Arkansas farmers and ranchers when they go to the polls in November.

Currently, just four companies - including Springdale-based Tyson Foods - process about 85% of American beef, according to Reuters, and small operations say the system makes it hard for them to be competitive.

The monopoly also impacts the price of meat at the grocery store.

Vice President Kamala Harris in a recent speech promised to support small businesses and crack down on "opportunistic companies that exploit crises and break the rules."

It really will take effort on both those fronts to ensure livestock production is a feasible business. According to Matthew Sheets - an organizer with the Land Stewardship Project - lawmakers are working on ways to make the industry fairer.

"It needs to be a two-pronged approach," said Sheets, "taking on the large interests that are consolidating this industry and harming everybody that is attached to it, and supporting the small to mid-sized operators and the people that are farming in a regenerative way."

A proposed rule would amend regulations under the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act to define "unfair practices" as business conduct that harms the market and market participants.

The comment period for that rule ends September 11.

Sheets said he has seen this issue bring people together across the political divide, and said he thinks Arkansans will be taking the issue to the polls in November.

"People know for a fact that it is causing harm to the communities," said Sheets, "the environment, the farmers that are attached to it, everybody."

While the meat industry has already been consolidated, Sheets said, the dairy industry is still in the beginning stages of that process and policy could help contain it.

The North American Meat Institute, that represents meatpackers, says processors and ranchers "benefit from a fair and competitive market."




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