BILLINGS, MT – Joining other ag organizations and calls for immediate action from at least one South Dakota Senator, Mike Rounds, R-CALF USA has sent President Trump an emergency letter describing the catastrophic crisis that consumers and America’s cattle ranchers and farmers are continuing to face
The letter explains that the coronavirus upheaval has significantly worsened the financial and economic conditions of the U.S. cattle industry and the result will be that many producers will not be able to make loan payment deadlines or survive the crisis without immediate intervention.
It also describes the work R-CALF USA has undertaken during the past two decades to prevent the current crisis. Included were its efforts to reform trade policy, restore Mandatory Country-of-Origin Labeling (M-COOL), restrict unfair and anticompetitive packer buying practices, preserve the industry’s price discovery market, and prevent imports from countries with highly contagious diseases, particularly Brazil that is affected by foot-and-mouth disease.
The letter states, “Unfortunately, decision makers have been disinclined to support any of these important reforms. So here we are. Mired in a catastrophic crisis. Our entire industry, along with all of Rural America it supports, needs your immediate attention.”
The group is asking the President to take five emergency stopgap measures:
- Direct lenders to grant emergency extensions of loan repayment deadlines and provide essential emergency operating funds.
- Grant federal capital gains tax relief for farmers selling land, cattle, and equipment to remedy their current financial plights.
- Eliminate the red tape that prevents state-inspected beef plants from selling beef across state lines to increase competition for cattle and eliminate the current bottleneck in beef distribution to consumers.
- Suspend the decision to allow raw beef from disease-affected Brazil.
- Direct the U.S. Department of Justice to immediately investigate the cause of this week’s inexplicable market volatility marked by severely depressed cattle prices and skyrocketing wholesale beef prices.
The letter also asks the President to take two additional measures that the group states are the real relief America’s cattle industry needs because, with Congress’ help, they will provide the means for cattle producers to remain successful – “a fully competitive marketplace and the tool they need to compete within it.”
That relief includes:
- Placing immediate limits on the percentage of cattle that packers can procure through arrangements that both circumvent and undermine the competitive cash market (to preserve the integrity of our industry’s nearly destroyed price discovery market, which, importantly, informs our industry’s futures market).
- Requiring all beef sold in America to be distinguished as to where the animal from which it was derived was born, raised, and harvested so American consumers can put American cattle producers First and choose to purchase safe, wholesome, exclusively American beef.
The letter concludes by asking the President for a brief face-to-face meeting “to concisely discuss the fundamental needs of the U.S. live cattle industry.
