Sen. Chuck Grassley sees his “years-long beef with Big Cattle” soon to be settled. The policy he touts is meant to normalize packer margins, but the market’s swinging pendulum is doing that without government intrusion.
International trade is an essential part of the U.S. beef industry. It’s also the topic that seemingly generates more interest among producers than any other major issue within the business.
A “beef import problem” does not exist, says Nevil Speer. Actually, beef imports don’t introduce competition – they establish complementarity and the ensuing value creation benefits both consumers AND producers.
Trade across national boundaries is a positive-sum activity; both trading partners gain or it wouldn’t occur. Any sort of intervention disrupts that premise and artificially establishes a system of winners and losers.
Imports and exports create value and provide opportunity for all trading partners, thereby underpinning the very reason international trade exists and it is integral to economic freedom.
Undoubtedly, consumers increasingly want more transparency. But reference to “where food comes from” invokes very specific connotations – beyond just country-of-origin.
A review of the data shows widening packer margins during the past several years have occurred for multiple reasons. The timing of that occurrence post-COOL is coincidental.
Seven years after repeal of mandatory country-of-origin labeling, a proposal has been introduced for the Secretary of Agriculture to “determine a means of reinstating” COOL, despite evidence of “no measurable benefits.”
There’s irony in R-CALF’s recent Market Reform bill 180-degree about face. The ranch group “presumably figured out what we’ve known all along: the cure is worse than the disease,” writes columnist Nevil Spear.
