The U.S. cattle industry has lost nearly half our cattle ranchers and over 70% of our feeding operations. Is it time to do something about the abusive market power of the meat industry? A self-explanatory table and a chart showing monthly net returns to feeding. Data are through March 2016. A 12-year moving average of returns. Competitive markets adjust over time to big losses and to big profits. Due to the long biological cycle for cattle, such adjustments Read More …
Native American wisdom says that decisions should be made with the next seven generations in mind. When it comes to agriculture and the production of food, we don’t look ahead at all. By C. Robert Taylor and Rodrigo Rodriguez-Kabana Look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground — the unborn Read More …
The worries about the power of Wall Street have their roots in rural America. More than 120 years ago, rural Grangers and Populists were warning about concentrations of business power. Maybe it’s time we listened to our rural forebears. By C. Robert Taylor When Nebraska farmers in the 1880s saw that their economic future was being controlled by large businesses, they didn’t occupy Wall Street. They built a new political party. Here is a picture of the Nebraska Read More …