Letter to the Editor

It appears that congress may finally be ready to take up and act on the Farm Bill. Unfortunately, it also appears that both parties are not including mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) for beef and pork. It has been shown repeatedly that COOL translates into higher prices for the American cow-calf producer. Four large packer corporations control the beef market. They continue to lobby Congress to maintain control so that they can mix inferior foreign meat with American meat and thus continue to make record profits. According to R-CALF USA, wholesale and retail beef prices have “decoupled from the value to producers.” That means consumers are paying more, but we ranchers aren’t getting a dime of that. In other words, “prices that retailers and packers are getting for beef are increasing much quicker than the value to farmers.” This gap has accelerated since COOL was repealed in 2015.

If family farms and ranches are going to survive in this country, the producers need to make a reasonable profit. Otherwise, land will continue to be sold to the very rich for other purposes and will be taken out of production agriculture. This does irreparable harm to our rural communities. COOL is one way to help keep ranchers viable. Currently, three out of our four Montana congressional representatives do not support COOL. Please tell them: no farm bill without COOL and sign our petition https://northernplains.org/campaign/support-cool-2024/. When the ag economy is strong, everyone wins.

Alan Shammel, Rancher
Northern Plains Resource Council