Antitrust in Food and Farming Under President Trump

Corporate powers are proposing mega mergers in almost every sector of agriculture. This essay explores how President Trump can keep his campaign promises to protect rural voters by strengthening the weakening enforcement of antitrust doctrines; specifically through the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) and reinstating the Country of Origin Labeling (CoOL) of meat products

The Broken Beef Cattle Industry: COOL, COVID and CattleTrace

While the Kansas City Stockyards themselves are gone, just like in the early 20th Century, a beef monopoly has once again found its way into the industry, and a way around the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921 and is again suffocating the industry. While at the time of the act’s passage in 1921 five companies controlled the market, today the market is even more consolidated in the “Big Four,” as the four biggest meat packing companies in America are commonly known (Cargill, Tyson, JBS and National Beef/Marfrig), and are again arguably stifling the free-market. If Americans do not act quickly to address this extreme consolidation, then the free-market, independent cattle rancher will soon face the same fate as the Kansas City Stockyards, and soon, like the Stockyards, will simply be history and a distant memory. This is not only bad news for the American rancher, but is even worse news for the American consumer, as the consolidation creates food security and food safety issues, as highlighted by the recent events of 2020-2021 surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic

MEASURING MARKET POWER WITH VARIABLES OTHER THAN PRICE

Beef packing has become an extremely concentrated industry, yet studies have found that little, if any market power exists. We propose and test alternative measures of behavior that may better describe how packers control purchases from feedlots, using confidential data collected by the USDA Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration.Marketing,

IMPACTS FROM CAPTIVE SUPPLIES ON FED CATTLE TRANSACTION PRICES

Increased use of noncash-price procurement methods has concerned cattlemen for the past several years. This research estimated impacts of captive supplies on transaction prices for fed cattle. Negative relationships were found between transaction prices and percentage deliveries from the inventory of forward contracted and marketing agreement cattle. However, impacts from the absolute size of the total captive supply inventory were not significant. Price differences were found among procurement methods with forward contract prices being much lower. On balance, captive supplies had small but often negative effects on fed cattle transaction prices.Demand and Price Analysis,

A STRATEGIC RATIONALE FOR CAPTIVE SUPPLIES

Partial backward integration is prevalent in many agricultural and natural resource processing industries. A strategic rationale for partial backward integration is developed for a dominant firm with a competitive fringe purchasing from competitive input suppliers. A partially backward integrated dominant firm potentially can increase profit through production efficiency gains and through a lower price for externally purchasing input. The optimal degree of backward integration results when the dominant firm's profit from exerting monopsony market power in the external spot market equals its profit from producing raw input internally, less the incremental cost of acquiring internal raw input production capacity. Comparative statics results are consistent with recent empirical studies of the beef packing industry.Agribusiness,

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FED CATTLE MARKET SHARES AND PRICES PAID BY BEEFPACKERS IN LOCALIZED MARKETS

Industrial organization theory hypothesizes that larger beefpackers can depress prices paid for cattle. Prices paid between at least two beefpackers in some localized markets studies were found to be significantly different for the one-month study period. However, larger beefpackers in each market paid neither lower or higher prices than the smallest buyer, with just one exception. No significant relationship was found between market shares of buyers and average prices paid for cattle. Thus, the hypothesis that larger beefpackers pay significantly lower prices was rejected.Livestock Production/Industries,

Jacques of All Trades: Derrida, Lacan, and the Commercial Lawyer

Professor DeLong’s article provides humorous advice for legal professors on how to apply deconstructionist and post-Freudian theory to commercial law classes. Professor DeLong explains that the key to the successful integration of postmodern thought into your own scholarship is stunningly simple: all you have to do is not care whether you really get it right. He describes how you too will soon be turning out articles like The Social Construction of Cowness in the Packers and Stockyards Act, or Silencing the Lambs: Narratives of Loss and Evisceration in the Packers and Stockyards Act, or Cattle Prods and Cutting Pens: A General Solution to Indeterminacy in the Packers and Stockyards Act. And to help get you started, he has illustrated a couple of basic ideas by using the UCC

SHORT-PERIOD PRICING MODELS FOR FED CATTLE AND IMPACTS OF WHOLESALE CARCASS BEEF AND LIVE CATTLE FUTURES MARKET PRICES

Demand and Price Analysis,

A guide to federal requirements for INTERSTATE MOVEMENT OF SWINE

This guide is NOT a regulation and is NOT to be used as such. For detailed information on interstate movement of swine, refer to Part 76 (as amended) of Title 9, Code of Federal Regulations. Copies of the regulations are available from the Animal Disease Eradication Division, Agricultural Research Service, U.S.D.A., Washington 25, D. C. In addition to these Federal requirements, be sure to check the regulations of the State of destination. Here is a general outline of the Federal regulations: a Healthy, unexposed slaughter hogs can be moved interstate without restriction directly to recognized slaughtering centers for slaughter; or to public stockyards, or approved stockyards and livestock markets for sale for slaughter. a Requirements for healthy, unexposed swine moved interstate for feeding or breeding purposes depend on (1) origin and (2) destination of shipment. In general, officially vaccinated pigs, properly identified as such and accompanied by a health certificate, can be shipped to any destination. Swine for feeding and breeding purposes can be moved without restriction to public stockyards, or to approved stockyards and livestock markets authorized to handle feeder pigs and breeding stock. But, such swine shipped from these points must be officially vaccinated and accompanied by a health certificate. Specific requirements are in the two tables