Ranchers differ on proposed meat industry regulations

Meat industry professionals clashed Friday about a federal plan designed to preserve competition in an industry increasingly dominated by a few large corporations. The meeting, which drew about 2,000 people to Colorado State University's Lory Student Center ballroom and overflow rooms, is one of five the Obama administration has scheduled for this year to hear about competition in the agriculture industry. Cattlemen, though, heatedly disagree about whether the rule would help or hurt them. Mike Harper of Harper Livestock of Eaton, which markets more than 200,000 head of lambs a year, said government regulation is the cause of the problems he faces, not the solution to it. He said his operation, which he runs with his father, Harold, is fortunate because there are two packers, JBS and Superior in Denver, to sell lambs. Harper told officials the biggest problem he faces is finding lambs to put in the feedlot as there are fewer and fewer producers running flocks. At least part of that is because of government regulations, he said, noting a longtime supplier of lambs in Montana is being forced out of business because the government claims their sheep are spreading disease to Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep. Dr. Taylor Haynes is a rancher and urologist from Cheyenne who specializes in grass-fed beef. He said he has seen a “tremendous loss in buyers” because all the small family feeding operations have gone by the wayside, because of consolidation and a takeover of the majority of beef slaughter by three companies, JBS, Tyson Foods and Cargill. “Bring the small and mid-size packers back and you will bring back the small family feeders,” Haynes said. Robbie LeValley, a cow-calf producer from Hotchkiss, said the proposed rules would hurt her. She and her family, along with five other ranching families, own Homestead Meats, which sells meat directly to consumers, retailers, and restaurants. She said under the proposal, she wouldn't be allowed to own the cattle she processes. Those rules, she said, need to take those kind of situations into consideration before they are implemented. “We don't need more government regulation,” she said. “We don't need external people who tell us we are bad.” Bill Bullard, CEO of Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, called for the immediate implementation of the new rules and got a round of applause from several supporters in the crowd, most from his home state of Montana, the Dakotas and Nebraska...more