Since President Trump has raised the issue of beef once again while in Asia (Recall he symbolically chose to dine on steak during his famous diner in China's Forbidden city), I would first like to thank him for continuing to fight for American producers. It is not only an economic matter, but one of national security as has been pointed out.

But as our President negotiates for producers overseas, I'd like to point out that we have work to do at home as well.

Regulatory capture and consolidation has a choke hold on our food supply at the processing level.

Much work has been done to free our economy of excessive regulations. I suggest we fight to free our food supply as well. The following excerpt illustrates how limited competition has become:

"Meatpacking exemplifies the monopolization downplayed by the USDA. Packers began consolidating in the late 1970s. Cargill bought meatpacker MBPXL in 1979. Smithfield has acquired 40 beef, pork, and chicken companies since 1981. Cal-Maine, the country’s biggest egg producer, hasacquired 18 companies since 1989. Today, four companies control 84% of beef slaughter in the U.S. and often hold more power at the local level, meaning less competition and lower prices for ranchers’ products. Things are much the same in pork, chicken, and eggs.

“There’s not an independent market for those farmers to sell their livestock into,” says Maxwell. Concentration among buyers, says Callicrate, steadily drives down the prices that ranchers and farmers can get for their products.

This same power relationships exist up and down supply chains and across agricultural sectors. Commodity-trading firms like ADM and Bunge and grocery chains like Walmart and Kroger have grown bigger and more powerful like the packers. “A cabal of monopolies,” says Patrick Woodall, Research Director at Food & Water Watch, “dominate every link in the food chain from seed to supermarket.”

Consolidation means lower margins for farmers and higher profits for monopolistic agribusinesses while offering little if any benefit to consumers. In ground beef, consumer prices for the product rose by 24% between 1999 and 2008, while beef cattle prices grew by 8.5% during the same period."

http://www.foodandpower.net/2018/03/29/usda-reports-on-farm-consolidation-but-ignores-the-cause/

We need a safe food supply, but we need fair competition.

I believe in the beef industry, deregulation of federal oversight on beef that is grown, processed and sold within state boundaries would significantly decrease the market stranglehold. State's should be allowed to govern intrastate commerce and food inspection practices.

More should be done to smartly regulate interstate commerce and inspection, but opening up states to make decisions for the intrastate market I believe would have a significant and quick impact for the industry. It would secondarily spur a return of small business butcher's.

God Bless you Mr. President, and God Bless all you Patriots in and out of uniform on the weekend of rememberance.