Cattle Producers Mad as Hell and Not Gonna Take It Anymore BAY SPRINGS, MS – Yesterday evening, over 100 farmers and ranchers gathered in Bay Springs, Mississippi to say “enough is enough.” With this year’s calf prices dropping to about half of what they were a year ago and putting Mississippi cattle producers’ viability in question, cattle producers learned of actions they can take to win back a free and just market to regain their fair share of Read More …
Dear Friends, Please find attached our new research related to egg prices and industrial agriculture as it relates to claims made in the robust debate surrounding State Question 777. As ever, our goal is discern fact from fiction in a nonpartisan manner. We believe the two attached sheets with infographics reveal a compelling (there’s that word!) snapshot of what’s really happening with regard to food prices. A hat tip to our director of education, Brian Ted Jones, for Read More …
Yesterday, straight off her high-profile campaign appearance Monday with Hillary Clinton, Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave a keynote address about industry consolidation in the American economy at a conference at the Capitol put on by New America’s Open Markets program. Though the speech has so far gotten only a modicum of attention—the press being more interested in litigating Donald Trump’s Pocahontas taunts—it has the potential to change the course of the presidential contest. Her speech begins at minute 56:45 Read More …
I am Fred Stokes from Porterville, Mississippi. I am happy and honored to be a participant in this conference. Ralph Nader is one of my heroes and the epitome of unselfish commitment to worthy causes. I was born on a small diversified family farm in Kemper County Mississippi, the home of the late Senator John C. Stennis. After spending some 20 years in the Army, I retired and returned to my home country to get rich in the Read More …
by Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman published in the Washington Monthly The National Review recently described Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump as “two populist peas in a pod.” This was not a compliment. Across the political spectrum, people stick the “populist” label on politicians they see as exploiting the worst resentments and envies of some tribe or another. The segregationist George Wallace, by this reckoning, was a populist. So, too, Jean-Marie Le Pen. Yet there is a Read More …
By Mike Callicrate Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, a longtime advocate for fair markets, is once again reintroducing a bill that would make it unlawful for meat packers to own livestock more than seven days prior to slaughter. Similar legislation has been introduced before, but the powerful packer lobby has always succeeded in killing it. Aside from whether the bill actually has a chance this time, there’s another question to consider. If Congress bans meat packers from owing livestock, Read More …
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 …
from Tom Giessel The Kansas Union Farmer Thursday, April 15, 1926 A crow sat on an old elm tree, and he was black as black could be I told him it was my belief that he was just an outlawed thief. “O yes, I am a thief.” Said he, “but there are bigger thieves than me; its true, I eat a little corn, and chickens too just newly born; and all the farmers plainly know that I am Read More …