The market news reports broadcast by the agricultural news stations are now based upon a thin, residual market used by monopsonistic packer-processors to fill the remainder of their kill lines.
Most geographic markets have only on or two buyers as a result.
Independent livestock producers, those who follow the market on a daily basis, and many economists know that monopoly pricing practices and exertion of corporate power harms producers and rural communities. Consumer groups have never called for a vertically integrated meat industry - to the contrary, consumer groups challenge the power and practices of multinational agribusinesses. In the past 10 years, factory farms have come to dominate the production side of agriculture. Studies are clear that factory farms are not per se more efficient than independent farms. For example, the economies of scale in producing hogs cease above approximately 250 sows.