Hashknife Ranch

Raising gaited horses 🐎 and red angus! 🐮 A 5th/6th generation south-central Montana ranch sharing our experiences and perspective with the rest of the world

[Hashknife Ranch @HashknifeMT]

Thoughts while ranchin:

How much time in our lives have we spent waiting for a gate to open, opening the gate, and/or going through it.

The little, yet important things take time and slow ya down. Don't fight it, embrace it

[Basel Musharbash @musharbash_b]

1. The Big Four created the cattle shortage they are complaining about by suppressing the price of cattle paid to ranchers to levels below the cost of production over the past two decades. Since the Big Four became entrenched in their control of the Nation’s cattle and beef markets in the late 2000s, they have used a suite of tools — including concerted plant shutdowns, beef imports from their foreign operations, and manipulation of captive cattle supplies — to depress the price of cattle while propping up the price of beef. As a result, between 2010 and 2021, the inflation-adjusted mark-up charged by meatpackers above the cost of cattle more than doubled and the three biggest meatpackers (JBS, Tyson, and Cargill) saw their average quarterly profit margins increase three-fold. Meanwhile, the average annual return on cattle feeding received by producers went from a profit of about $5 per head in the 2000s, down to a loss of about $35-40 per head in the 2010s, and down to an even greater loss of $60-70 per head in the early 2020s. In this context, sustained financial losses have driven more than 150,000 feedlots out of business over the past 20 years and eliminated the incentive for remaining producers to expand cattle output — ultimately causing the Nation’s cattle herd to shrink to approximately 85 million head, its smallest size in 75 years.

2. For example, as recent lawsuits brought by cattle producer association R-CALF as well as large corporations like McDonald’s and Sysco have alleged, from 2009 to 2014 the Big Four were paying steadily increasing prices for cattle. This was due to a natural shortage of cattle brought on by drought, which had spurred cattlemen to reduce their herds. The Big Four responded to the higher prices by closing a total of five plants in quick succession between January 2013 and September 2014, including one of Cargill’s largest plants in Plainview, Texas, which processed more than 4,500 head per day — roughly 5% of all beef production in the country. Ranchers and small feedlot owners with full-grown, fattened cattle didn’t have space or feed to wait out a dip in buying, so they were forced to accept a lower price. By November 2014, cattle prices had leveled off.

3. Before the parallel shutdowns by the Big Four, industry experts widely projected that cattle prices would remain steady in 2015 and for several years after, before experiencing a gradual decline as the drought eased and the inventory of cattle was replenished. But, according to the lawsuits, the Big Four didn’t want to wait for cattle prices to come down on their own. Emboldened by the effectiveness of their parallel shutdowns, the lawsuits allege, the Big Four colluded to make sure the period of elevated prices in cattle markets would be cut short. They came up with a system in which the heads of operations at all of the Big Four directly communicated with each other to temporarily halt cattle buying whenever cattle prices got too high. Because the Big Four controlled so much of the market, the lawsuits allege, even a temporary reduction of kills immediately depressed market prices. When those prices hit an agreed-upon level, the Big Four simultaneously resumed buying. The alleged scheme worked so well that prices for cattle across the US collapsed dramatically in 2015 and then stabilized at levels below the prior trendline.

4. This collusion, according to the lawsuits, increased “the meat margin” — the spread between the price paid by the Big Four for fed cattle (cattle fattened in feedlots and ready for slaughter) and the price they charged to wholesale customers for beef. “Even with the drastic collapse in fed cattle prices caused by [the Big Four’s] conspiracy,” the R-CALF lawsuit states, the meatpackers “continued to benefit from record beef prices,” allowing them “to post record per-head meat margins” throughout the late 2010s.

[Rep. Harriet Hageman @RepHageman]

Wind farms get a free pass for devastating bald eagle populations while ranchers and fishermen get strangled by the Endangered Species Act.

The Endangered Species Act Amendments Act finally ends the double standard with reforms that are decades overdue.

[R-CALF USA @RCALFUSA]

“MCOOL doesn’t work.”

Let's talk about it ⬇️

Opposition to MCOOL does not come from the producer side of the industry. It comes from the packer sector, which profits most from blending foreign and domestic beef and selling domestic beef without disclosing it. Independent producers, consumers, and rural communities stand to gain from transparency.

The claim that MCOOL doesn’t work ignores the fact that it worked exactly as intended before its repeal in late 2015: it allowed consumers to choose and it allowed producers to compete.

The real economic reason MCOOL was repealed had nothing to do with cost or trade. It had everything to do with packer profit. When MCOOL was in place, U.S. born cattle gained value compared to imported cattle because consumers could identify and choose American beef. Even the Big 4 packers admitted this in court.

In the In Re Cattle Antitrust Litigation, they acknowledged that when MCOOL was repealed and foreign beef no longer required labels, this “spurred additional imports and caused domestic cattle prices to fall.” That is their own statement, not an outside claim, and it confirms that MCOOL changed market behavior.

USDA reached similar conclusions. The agency found that packers could not sell beef labeled as Canadian or Mexican for the same price as beef labeled from the United States. Once Congress repealed MCOOL under WTO pressure, packers erased that price difference by erasing the labels. That allowed them to blend cheaper imported beef into the domestic supply and sell it all as a U.S. product.

MCOOL never reduced import volumes by force. What changed was that U.S. born cattle earned proper value in the marketplace because origin was no longer hidden. Producers lose value without MCOOL while packers increase their margins.

Every day MCOOL remains repealed, American consumers unknowingly pay domestic prices for imported beef while American producers suffer the cost.

Call [phone] and tell Congress to #LabelOurBeef.

[Lonesome Lands @LonesomeLands]

This is not an inflation headache. This is decades of generational ranches being pushed off the land by corporate ag policy, combined with a parasite that immigrated towards our border along with millions of illegals, causing the border closure to Mexican cattle. The result is the smallest U.S. cattle herd in 70 years.

[dalle @dalle_rutledge]

This is the type of picture that deserves to be painted.

[Steve Lalum @lalum_steve]

In three days the weather went from sub zero temps with a calf killer blizzard to upper 70’s and bugs on the windshield. Montana will make you scratch your head sometimes.

[Hashknife Ranch @HashknifeMT]

This winter will forever be remembered not for the unseasonably warm temps or lack of snow. It will be remembered for the atrocious wind. We have had one high wind advisory after another for weeks on end. Top speeds often in high 50s and this week topping 67mph

[Sawyer @SawyerWhisler]

Consolidation in agriculture isn't just an ag problem.

It's happening in trucking, banking, retail, media. The playbook is the same everywhere: use scale and capital to squeeze out the small operators, then raise prices once the competition is gone.

The small farmer is just the most visible victim of a much bigger trend.

[Hashknife Ranch @HashknifeMT]

Top wind speed today was 67mph. Crazy how windy this winter has been!

[Hashknife Ranch @HashknifeMT]

Been seeing lots on issues with high carcass weights with packers lately. Packers drove that requirement for efficient production.

Most custom producers (direct sales) float between 600-800lb carcasses. Cheaper for consumers, easier to move, less bone growth (ref. 1st reason)

[Hashknife Ranch @HashknifeMT]

Can't eat your cake and have it too. Packers have driven producers toward higher carcasses for efficiency.

[Casey Schuhmacher @cowbroker]

Packers are getting sick of the elephants

[Tregg Cronin @5thWave_tcronin]

A decade of eating shit and we’re back to cattlemen are the problem.

No one can handle the producer having any leverage in cattle or grain production. It’s almost as if it’s our duty to do it for nothing.

[R-CALF USA @RCALFUSA]

You’re told record beef prices are due to drought and a border closure. Those events exposed a deeper problem.

• Packer concentration rose from 36% in 1980 to 85% in 2021.

• More than half of U.S. cattle farms disappeared.

• The consumer beef dollar flipped.

• The farm to retail spread widened from $0.88 to $4.58 per pound.

📺Watch: The State of America’s Beef Industry, Part 1

[Hashknife Ranch @HashknifeMT]

One thing folks forget, every time a beef animal is sold there is a check-off of $1. If that animal is sold 10 times in its lifetime, the NCBA gets a free $10...

[Farm Action @FarmActionUS]

Senator Cory Booker just exposed how massive food lobbyists are abusing federal programs to steal money from independent farmers.

Then, they use that money to entrench their monopoly power at the expense of independent farmers.

“I cannot tell you how much the checkoff program pisses me off.”

“They’re making American cattlemen and women pay money into the group that then uses it to hurt their industry.”

Farm Action’s Joe Maxwell revealed that “almost 70%” of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association budget comes from these checkoff funds.

And he named one key reform that Congress can pass to fight back on behalf of independent farmers:

“One of the best ways to stabilize the market for domestic production is to restore Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling for beef.”

“Those cowboy hats that walk this hall for NCBA will oppose it, not because it’s in the best interest of the cattle producers of the United States to oppose it, [but] because it’s in the best interest of the meat packers.”

@SenBooker

[Hashknife Ranch @HashknifeMT]

@Jasonpepe @FarmActionUS He has actually been at the forefront for years with this issue, which is also surprising because he a well-known vegan

[Farm Action @FarmActionUS]

RFK Jr. warns there’s a major crisis looming:

Not enough young people are entering farming.

“A lot of farmers are going out of business.”

“We’re having a hard time finding young people who will go into farming.”

“That is a crisis that we need to keep into consideration.”

@SecKennedy

[Hashknife Ranch @HashknifeMT]

You know what doesn't cost $14 Billion and has REAL change for all producers?

Country of Origin Labeling.

Take it a step further from just meat and provide it for grains, fruits, & veggies.

Create transparency for consumers. Let them decide who to support with their own money

[Cowpoke 4.0 @Cowpokeisback]

Sunrise on the back of a horse are the best sunrises

[Lonesome Lands @LonesomeLands]

It’s been 2 weeks since USDA put out a plan to fortify the beef industry and strengthen ranching and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has not had any response. What exactly do they do there? @BeefUSA