RANCHERS DECIDE TO OPEN MEAT SMALL PROCESSING PLANTS

This story comes courtesy of M.D., and it's an indication that the puchback has begun in earnest. Ranchers, fed up with rising prices of meat at the grocery store, while their own sales prices fall, have had enough, and decided to open their own meat processing plants and compete with "Big Agribusiness":

Unhappy with prices, ranchers look to build own meat plants

Here's the gist of the story:

DES MOINES, Iowa — Like other ranchers across the country, Rusty Kemp for years grumbled about rock-bottom prices paid for the cattle he raised in central Nebraska, even as the cost of beef at grocery stores kept climbing.

He and his neighbors blamed it on consolidation in the beef industry stretching back to the 1970s that resulted in four companies slaughtering over 80% of the nation’s cattle, giving the processors more power to set prices while ranchers struggled to make a living. Federal data show that for every dollar spent on food, the share that went to ranchers and farmers dropped from 35 cents in the 1970s to 14 cents recently.

It led Kemp to launch an audacious plan: Raise more than $300 million from ranchers to build a plant themselves, putting their future in their own hands.

...

Crews will start work this fall building the Sustainable Beef plant on nearly 400 acres near North Platte, Nebraska, and other groups are making similar surprising moves in Iowa, Idaho and Wisconsin. The enterprises will test whether it's really possible to compete financially against an industry trend that has swept through American agriculture and that played a role in meat shortages during the coronavirus pandemic.

...

Consolidation of meatpacking started in the mid-1970s, with buyouts of smaller companies, mergers and a shift to much larger plants. Census data cited by the USDA shows that the number of livestock slaughter plants declined from 2,590 in 1977 to 1,387 in 1992. And big processors gradually dominated, going from handling only 12% of cattle in 1977 to 65% by 1997.

Currently four companies — Cargill, JBS, Tyson Foods and National Beef Packing — control over 80% of the U.S. beef market thanks to cattle slaughtered at 24 plants. That concentration became problematic when the coronavirus infected workers, slowing and even closing some of the massive plants, and a cyberattack last summer briefly forced a shutdown of JBS plants until the company paid an $11 million ransom.

Now why am I blogging about this story? It's hardly our normal fare of geopolitics, financial cabals, corporate criminals, high jinx in space, or strange stuff occurring in Antarctica. I suspect there's more going on here than is perhaps being reported, or for that matter, that these ranchers are saying. One of the things that I suspect they're not saying is that they are concerned with two trends, the second of which is the unstated motivation: (1) the centralization of the meat packing industry, a trend paralleling the growth of big agribusiness in general, as the article itself states, and (2) the corruption of the food supply, in this case, by advocates of synthetic (and even three-d printed) meat, such as Baal Gates. We've blogged many times in the past few years about big agribusiness and what GMOs have done to the food supply, particularly in the United States and Europe. Centralization will make it all the easier for big agribusiness to force people away from real meat to synthetics, thus putting these ranchers out of business. Think Greta Thunberg here, shrieking "how dare you!" to the ranchers, with Baal Gates in the wings, urging her on.

My suspicion is that these ranchers intend to fight the trend towards more centralization and in the process restore public confidence in the food supply, and they can only do this by being involved in the entire chain, from raising, slaughtering, cutting, packaging, and distributing their product independently of the "big four" packers. That is to say that there are corollary implications here if my reading and high octane speculation are correct: alliances and distribution.  If that one unspoken motivation for the emergence of these smaller sized meat packing plants is indeed correct, then watch for alliances of a regional nature to form between independent farmers and ranchers, and as these emerge, the creation of regional distribution systems to parallel the in-house distribution that the major meat packers such as Tyson already possess.

In short, this is in my opinion good news, as people take back more and more local control.  I know that, if my choice in the meat department is something from Tyson, or something from XYZ Meats located in my own or a neighboring state with local meat, along with similar locally or regionally grown produce, what my choice will be.

See you on the flip side...

 

Posted in

Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

7 Comments

  1. SpaceWombat on October 30, 2021 at 6:13 am


  2. Mr. G. B. on October 26, 2021 at 10:33 pm

    This is absolutely true. I live in a rural community nearly 5000 people 1500 of which are seasonal. We are opening one here, pretty awesome deal too. 35 cents per pound to process and about 1.50 live weight. I bought a cow and got about 400lbs of meat. It’s a pretty good deal. Not bad compared to 5 dollars per pound. This is true though, the ranchers are starting cooperative processing facilities, so far we have one finished.



  3. KSW on October 25, 2021 at 10:46 am

    This is VERY good news. NOW, if we can only convince the local ranchers that “shooting-up” their animals with synthetic hormones and antibiotics, feeding them GMO feeds, and raising them in unsanitary feed lots (needing antibiotics) is much less desirable than mostly grass-fed and free range then I’ll go back to buying conventional meats. Remember, we’re becoming antibiotic resistant and antibiotics cause other health issues regardless of how we ingest them. So, I plan to keep supporting the local growers who having healthy growing practices, even if I pay slightly more. Until synthetic and 3D meat started rearing it’s ugly head, conventional meats along with GMOs were at the top of my do not buy list.



  4. Jon on October 23, 2021 at 4:55 pm

    This has been the trend for some time in many smaller rural areas. In my area (rural Eastern Oregon), there are many ranches which sell to local markets. This trend started over 2 decades ago, and many of the ranchers have moved to fully grass-fed, very healthy cattle. The quality of the meat is much higher than the factory farmed meat, even though it does cost more.

    Whenever anyone complains about the price of such high quality food, I always point out that it is far cheaper to eat well than to be sick.

    Oh, and about that “fringe” group of Oregon people who want to move their counties to Idaho (or start a new state), it is NOT some small radical group, it is something like 27 out of 36 counties (and that was before the scamdemic). Unfortunately, the likelihood of that happening under the current occupation regime is non-existent. That process is daunting even in the best of times.

    While Idaho does offer some benefits in greater support for SOME parts of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, it still has some very puritanical, even positively Medieval, laws on the books. Also, it is getting a huge influx of people escaping from Calunicornia, which is one of the factors which ruined Oregon. Boise, which used to be a nice city, is becoming more and more like Portland every day. In fact, that is where the term “californication” came from – Oregonians’ response to the influx of people from that state.

    A new state, or new country, would be better, but that is a remote possibility as well. I’m about ready for a new planet or alternate timeline – some place where mass insanity is not a problem.



    • Richard on October 23, 2021 at 5:58 pm

      That northwestern region has a lot to boast about. Potatoes are one. Makes one wonder whether those potato farming know about South Americas potatoes – some 1200 species – that grow in a multitude of challenged conditions from drought to wet – cold to hot – high altitude and low.



    • FiatLux on October 24, 2021 at 8:32 am

      I’ve read about Californians fleeing in large numbers to Idaho, Montana, Arizona, Colorado, and (Austin) Texas, to name only the most common places. I’m curious if anybody out there, other than in Oregon and Washington state, has seen migration out of Blue states causing politics to change in their area? To be clear, I don’t blame people for leaving Cali these days; I’m just trying to keep an eye on if/how the political mix of the U.S. is evolving.



  5. Robert Barricklow on October 23, 2021 at 4:33 pm

    Putin spoke to today’s issues in this speech of over 3 hrs.
    The issues he discusses, are many discussed at this site.
    [Got this in the forum/courtesy of TSC]
    http://www.en.kremlin.ru/multimedia/video

    [hope it takes]



    • Robert Barricklow on October 23, 2021 at 6:17 pm

      Didn’t like Putin’s responses on the quackcine questions, nor climate change.
      I wonder whose ring he was kissing in those responses?

      He was right on target in his discussion of the individual Nation States sovereignty’s; over internationalism, in all ways and means.



  6. Loxie Lou Davie on October 23, 2021 at 12:51 pm

    Let’s Go Local!! Let’s Go Brandon!!!



    • Richard on October 23, 2021 at 6:00 pm

      Must have missed the train on that one. Who’s Brandon?



      • Robert Barricklow on October 23, 2021 at 6:24 pm

        Here’s a video that ‘splains it:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqzZaPOTDL8



        • Richard on October 24, 2021 at 6:57 am

          So that’s what all that noise was about. Some commentator news person did worse than I did by clicking to the next news segment. Apparently, anything after “B” was to much to handle by that news gatherer. Bit of a disconnect, too, it seems.



  7. Nathan on October 23, 2021 at 9:08 am

    This is great news , we shall see how the feds deal with this, all the ranchers and general population needs to remember is we got the #’s



    • InfiniteRUs on October 24, 2021 at 12:57 pm

      They will do like they always do to unapproved businesses. They will inspect and fine them out of business. That’s why the real reason government exists, so the monopoly owners can inspect and fine their competition out of business.



      • InfiniteRUs on October 24, 2021 at 1:04 pm

        Monopoly owners paid for and own the world’s governments. Nationalist borders, Republics, Democracies, and Socialism is all an illussion. You are run and controlled by a world encompassing olligarchy that wants absolute power and a lot less people in the world. Politicians and military leaders will do whatever it takes to maintain the value of their ill gotten monopoly money to the very end of either you or them.



    • Richard on October 23, 2021 at 6:15 pm

      There are advantages to single items for a time as they move products and bring attention to other quality products not considered. Walmart has been buying commodities like that demonstrated for some time. They also vary what they get in commodities, too. At least, before this Covid business. Not everything is stuck on a cargo ship coming from over there you know where. Some of that junk can stay on those containers without noticing they’re not available. It will be limited but change about re-tooling within borders in manufacturing across the board will accelerate exponentially. Slow in the beginning steeping higher a little later. Other countries are likely to discover their own presence in markets and actually benefit.

      A lot of single folks have often stocked up on Macaroni & Cheese (as an example) as it was based on their school budgets. Pizza’s get expensive over time – Mac & Cheese not so much. Hunger isn’t picky about who it manifests with.



  8. Michael UK on October 23, 2021 at 3:42 am

    USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada need to ensure they do not become reliant on China for their key strategic product supplies such as energy, fuel, food, chemicals, cement, iron and steel.
    It would be dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket – as any good farmer will tell you!
    The West is already reliant on China for many items, but fortunately not the strategic products listed above!
    Farmers also know that you reap what you sow!
    Keep an eye on those tankers and cargo container ships.



  9. Richard on October 23, 2021 at 3:17 am

    In some ways, what the ranchers seem to be doing is no different than large scale fishing vessels that do all the required operations of a land-based facility – instead, it’s done at the local cooperative or ranch facility or even at the county level since some counties are big enough for ranches and those processing facilities. One alternative for some individuals might be to ween themselves off of meats altogether. That would take some doing given how the species has been well adapted to meats in general. Contrary to what some might be thinking, one is not ready for synthetic burgers just yet, although have been trying out an experimental cuisine over the last year and a half. Been making progress, too, but no synthetic burgers from you know who.



  10. marcos toledo on October 22, 2021 at 7:55 pm

    Christian Westbrook of ice age farmer has been warning about the war on meat on his video website on YouTube. He is moving to BitChute and Rumble he has been warning about censorship on YouTube as well. This move by these ranchers is long overdue along with poultry farmers and other food producers. Gates and his fellow oligarchs are out to cull the herd so only a fool would leave food and other items in the hands of these monsters.



    • ragiza on October 22, 2021 at 10:07 pm

      With what we know so far about this man made covid pandemic, the bogus serial injections, his desire to reduce human population, how could anybody trust food products from Gates?



    • marcos toledo on October 25, 2021 at 8:34 pm

      My mistake he is Odyseey, not Rumble.



  11. ragiza on October 22, 2021 at 12:02 pm

    To make this work they need to know who to bribe in the Federal govt. You can be sure the existing vested interests do, and so does Gates with his ersatz meat.



    • InfiniteRUs on October 24, 2021 at 1:16 pm

      The Global oligarchy owns the world regulating bodies completely now so bribes are a thing of the past. They will allow them to waste enormous amounts of money and resources to build and open their facilities then they will give the order for the inspectors to fine them out of business. Those who invested in this will lose everything and make it unlikely anyone will try to invest in competing against their interests in the future. They are laughing at this scheme no doubt.



  12. Robert Barricklow on October 22, 2021 at 11:36 am

    Ronal Reagan never saw a monopoly he didn’t adore.
    Just as covid1984 was designed to push everybody into the virtual worlds; it is also designed to make everyone eat synthetically grown lab meats.
    So the synthetic elites are beginning to haptically sense the pushback.
    It’s another case of, Do as I say, not as I do in eating a real thick juicy
    char-broiled grass-fed non-genetically engineered steak.
    Rockefeller Inc bombed the electric car/bus factory long ago.
    Expect the same: sabotage.



  13. FiatLux on October 22, 2021 at 7:38 am

    What good news — people making real efforts at building parallel systems! Let’s all hope this trend continues, and spreads to other sectors of the economy and society (including education!). The point about distribution and alliances is an astute one. It just so happens lots of people are going to be out of work, including truckers meat-processing-plant employees, etc. As CAF says, this is an opportunity.

    Another potential implication: Regional distribution networks and alliances would favor decentralization and regionalization. Regionalization of economic interests and distribution systems could, in turn, further the de facto separation of the U.S. into two or more blocs.



    • Joseph Aiello on October 22, 2021 at 10:20 am

      Decentralization creates redundancy.



    • Awake on October 22, 2021 at 2:22 pm

      Everything in nature that survives and multiplies has redundancy as well as some form of decentralization. As a cattle rancher in Texas, I have been wanting to open my own processing center for a few years now. Unfortunately, Covid put a huge damper on my plans. Although if given the chance I would move forward with opening such a local processing / butcher shop for the surrounding area. Many folk’s have said that it would get a lot of business and I have had 3 different large herd owners (1000+) give me their assurances that they would bring all their processing business to my facility once I open it. It will be interesting to see what happens locally over the next few months and years.



      • Richard on October 23, 2021 at 3:23 am

        If this Covid business has done anything it’s enforced the notion of backup plans in earnest.



  14. anakephalaiosis on October 22, 2021 at 5:39 am

    Assyrians grew frustrated, by the unpredictable Scythians, who follow grazing beef, that roams pastures, and looks to the moon.

    LIZZY LIZARD IN CHINA 2

    King Who launched a new strategy,
    planned by Sun Tzu military,
    to entrap a teaspoon
    in spell of moon,
    by Earl Grey blend wizardry.

    Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them:
    https://fantasticbeasts.tumblr.com/post/181500349440/roach-in-teapot-fantastic-beasts-and-where-to/amp

    Daleks at BBC:
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/jeqwyztt2vbxwrf/doctor-whoops-a-daisy.jpg



    • Scarmoge on October 22, 2021 at 6:28 am

      … has recently happened here in Texas as well. 2 independent processors (private ranches) have opened for business within the last 2-3 months.



    • Robert Barricklow on October 22, 2021 at 11:15 pm

      Reminds of the cartoon that pictures two vultures drinking tea.
      One vulture says to the other,
      “Well I’ve tasted Earl Grey,
      and this isn’t Earl Grey.”



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