Market Farming

["Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>]

Globalcirclenet quoted Martha Stevens:
> Surprise!!! -- IBP "earned" a record $92 million during the last
> quarter of
> 1998. If memory serves me right, that was about the same time that
> independent pork producers were losing in excess of $50 per animal due to
> the drastic drop in market price. Not to say that IBP was the only packer
> guilty of this "double dipping" (low prices to producers; high prices to
> consumers). It just happens that IBP was the only one dumb enough to
> announce it for all the world to see!

Is she really that lacking in knowledge? This is a public stock company is
it not? Surely you folks realize that they have to release this information.
And now that they are owned by Tyson, it still is a public stock company is
it not? So this is public information. If it was a private company then they
could keep this information proprietary. This is one of the advantages of
having public companies (assuming they have honest CEO's and CFO's and
auditing firms).

> And so it goes. Ain’t concentration and consolidation in agriculture
> grand???! And it’s only just begun! Wake up and smell the roses, people!!
> A little support for the independent family farmer/customer might be in
> order, don’t you think?

There is going to be a lot of pain as the inefficiencies are wrung out of
the market. The few remaining implement companies and for the most part they
are all really multi-national now, will primarily be selling the larger
implements in a shrinking market.

> A good part of the current rural crisis can be laid at the door of
> government policy. Despite numerous farm groups and state leaders urging
> the USDA to enforce the Packers and Stockyards Act and Anti Trust Laws,
> that agency shows no inclination to do so.

You have to show that the consumer is being hurt folks. You can not just
unilaterally invoke the law because you want to make people feel good at
someone else's expense. They have never been able to make the case of the
consumer being affected negatively.

I will point it out again, that in order to do many of the things that
people claim they want changed, you first will have to change the U.S.
Constitution to make it legal. That has not been done yet.

Sincerely,

Rick Williams
Misty Ridge Farm
Dairy heifers and dairy beef graziers
Viroqua, WI

www.mistyridgefarm.com