Farmers and ranchers in rural Missouri and Illinois, it’s safe to say, are a pretty conservative group, firm in their longtime dedication to the deregulation and free market principles of the Republican Party. But now might be a good time for them to take a good look at their bank accounts and contrast their increasingly meager earnings to the astounding profits being enjoyed by the corporate conglomerates that control America’s meat, poultry and pork markets. Someone is taking it on the chin, and it ain’t the conglomerates.
The last entity farmers and ranchers should turn to for help is the Republican Party, which has a demonstrated record of siding with corporate interests whenever it involves a matchup against the little guy. At some point, rural voters in Missouri and Illinois will perform a frank economic assessment of their sagging financial prospects and start questioning why their party isn’t stepping up to help.
What’s happening right now across America is bizarre and defies all standard economic models. Demand is high for meat, poultry and pork in American supermarkets. Supplies are dwindling and prices are through the roof — rising 20% just in the past year. Under normal circumstances, that situation would deliver a sizable financial windfall for those who control the source product — that is, the ranchers and farmers whose farm animals supply those markets. But both consumers and source suppliers find themselves increasingly squeezed.
Right there in the middle, however, are corporate conglomerates, like Tyson, Cargill and Sysco, that have seen their profitability skyrocket since the pandemic began. The Biden administration says four large conglomerates control 85% of the market. Their domination allows them to dictate purchase prices at the producer level and sales prices at the consumer level. If ranchers dare to challenge them, they can find themselves with no slaughterhouses willing to accept their animals because no one wants to get squashed by Bigfoot.
“We are contemplating getting out,” Montana rancher Steve Charter told The New York Times in December as he choked back tears. “We are not getting our share of the consumer dollars.”
The tactics employed by the conglomerates invoke the same images of the robber barons from the dawn of America’s westward expansion. Republicans, transfixed with the idea that unbridled free enterprise can do no wrong, don’t dare question the unfair practices that are taking place. Ranchers like Charter have long been loath to challenge that conservative orthodoxy, yet they cannot deny the real-life effects corporate market domination is having on their ability to survive.
What’s happening here is not free enterprise. It bears all the hallmarks of abuse bordering on antitrust. If farmers and ranchers want to see this unfair corporate domination change so they can survive, they’ll either have to change party loyalties or force their own party to come to grips with the monster Republicans helped create.
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