Busterz":2r9ft9k8 said:
Actually we are well on our way there - the first step of course to make it so difficult to make a dollar raising cattle that you grab on to that nice contract from the corporation to raise their animals when they come along - vertical integration has and continues to make it tough out there. It will get worse.
Once you are there and you have a vested financial interest - remember all those folks who built those nice barns to raise those nice hogs for that nice corporation? Once you start paying to follow the corporations demands you will be "In for a penny and in for a pound".
Well then the corporations started squeezing hog producers who thought they had entered into a family farm saving agreement and now a lot of hog barns are going empty. I have a close family friend and his wife in the hog business who are slowly going down because of this.
Think it will not happen or cannot happen in the cattle industry?
In my opinion that is arrogance.
Best think again - a lot of folks out there really want to raise cattle - cannot do it very easy - but once those pretty contracts from the corporations show up and look oretty profitable - it will be nice to raise that 1/8 this, 3/8 that plus 1/4 this and 1/4 that. Cookie cutter designer beef - all the same size and all the same genetic make up. It can be done and once perfected will make cattle just like hogs.
If you want in - you sign up and raise what you are told
Then the corporations have you and they own you and people think it will not happen.
Ask that old guy who raised hogs from six different bloodlines back in the 60's if he thought that about his industry back then.
Lots of short sighted people here - but it can happen and I believe is starting.
Time will tell if I am right or wrong - but when a family operation is going broke that corporation might initially look like a good way to save the place.
Hooked!!!
The you go down.
I have been called an idiot many times in my life and probably will be again - but vertical integration allows corporations to control pricing - and through that they also can control you.
So - in closing - the question is "Will cattle go the way of hogs"?
I do not know the answer for sure - but I do know this.
If there is enough corporate interest - and that means if there is money to be made doing it - then it DEFINITELY CAN go the way of hogs.
Bez+