Recently a viewer sent me an impassioned video of Shad Sullivan’s warning that our food supply is in trouble as he discusses the plight of farmers forced to destroy harvests as we import food from around the world.

He is the R-CALF USA Private Property Rights Committee Chair. A position very personal to him since he saw firsthand, lost family farms.

R-CALF USA (Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America), is the largest producer-only membership-based organization that exclusively represents U.S. cattle and sheep producers on domestic and international trade and marketing issues.

In an industry dominated by 4 meatpackers controlling every aspect and unjust trade agreements, R-CALF USA quickly rose to become the national voice for independent cow-calf producers and feeders across America.

They are fighting to bring back mandatory country-of-origin labeling, fighting to stop anti-competitive and unjust practices by the packers, to prevent high-risk imports from countries with disease outbreaks, fighting to allow U.S. cattle producers to promote their USA beef within the beef checkoff program and make the program voluntary.

Importantly, R-Calf and Shad Sullivan are fighting for all of us to have control and choice, over our food. He is ringing the alarm and we all need to pay heed. There is so much at stake.

Thank you for bringing this extremely important issue to our attention.

1. Why did you post that video?
2. We’ve been watching farmers destroy food while so many are going hungry because of the breakdown in the supply chain. Why are farmers doing this? What would be the alternative?
3. In a recent interview you did with Patrick Bet-David on Valuetainment you made the statement, which was an excellent interview and the link is below, but you said “THEY CANNOT HAVE CONTROL OF THE PEOPLE UNLESS THEY HAVE CONTROL OF THE FOOD, THE WATER, THE LAND…PRODUCTION.”

Food is the biggest issue for most people and I think we’ve just gotten a taste of what happens when people panic. I believe you were referring to the consolidation and take over of the food supply chain by the 4 biggest players, Tyson, Cargill JBS and National Beef. Which, by the way, we’ve also seen happen in the seed supply chain. You also mentioned Sonny Perdue, the Secretary of Agriculture, being a globalist.

4. How has that impacted ranchers?
5. Can you explain how this impacts us and what we can do about this?
6. Would it be possible for R-Calf members to create their own processing plants and take back control?
7. How can we prevent a take over of the food industry
8. Over time, Wall Street has created paper markets that control prices in the physical markets making it all about a trade rather than reflecting true costs to produce. We’ve certainly seen this with gold and silver futures contracts and recently we actually saw an oil contract go negative, implying that oil producers would have to pay to have companies take possession of oil. The OCC also shows us that end user contracts, like farmers hedging future delivery of their harvest, is minuscule compared to speculative trading.
   1. Can you please explain your cost to raise a cow vs what you can sell the cow for and do you think Wall Street has anything to do with the disconnect? If not, why do you think you’re forced to sell below your costs.
   2. What are farmers doing to stay afloat?

Slides and Links:

https://www.hcn.org/issues/43.5/cattlemen-struggle-against-giant-meatpackers-and-economic-squeezes/the-big-four-meatpackers-1

https://www.ft.com/content/f6e2b4ad-4a62-4c6f-8348-38704e3e81f6

https://www.northernag.net/r-calf-files-lawsuit-against-big-four-beef-packers/

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/business/economy/coronavirus-trump-meat-food-supply.html

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/livestock-and-meat-international-trade-data/

https://occ.gov/publications-and-resources/publications/quarterly-report-on-bank-trading-and-derivatives-activities/files/q2-2019-derivatives-quarterly.html