Part of that report was taking into consideration the fire at the Tyson plant in Finney county, Ks. Yes the packers were making a killing from both directions... off the backs of the farmers by the price of fats dropping the max allowed for a couple of days; and by telling the boxed beef buyers that there was going to be a shortage of beef due to reduced kill numbers, and the prices of boxed beef went through the roof. Some may not like him, but if you listen to DV Auctions, Corbitt Wall does a daily thing called "Feeder Flash" and he has commented on it extensively since the fire at the plant nearly 3 weeks ago. The "funny thing" about this is that numbers of fats actually processed is actually up from a year ago.... so the 6,000 head a day lost that were processed at the Tyson plant did not cause a "shortage of beef"....
We are getting screwed and R-Calf has actually filed a lawsuit against the Packers under the packers and stockyards act due to collusion and price fixing because of the monopoly by the 4 "big companies" that now control over 80% of the kill facilities. Think Ma Bell, and how they had to divest of all the "baby bells" because of having a monopolistic stranglehold on the phone systems in this country. Now there are a bunch of phone companies. Not saying it is all better, but the "big 4" have been buying up and absorbing so many smaller labels and the little independent guy cannot make it because they "manage to fix" the prices so that the smaller companies have to compete on an uneven playing field. NCBA is giving them lip service, but aren't in this for the cattleman in the long run. R-Calf is one of the only groups that is actually trying to help the small and independent cattleman. If you don't want the beef industry to go all the way over to the hog and chicken models, support the groups that are actually fighting to support you.