In today's market a sale of this volume causes the entire industry to flush their inventories of cattle at the going low price. Feeders have only minutes to decide on the take it or leave it offers by the big packers. A past ConAgra executive recently informed cattle producers and feeders that ConAgra consistently used their own cattle inventories, although not market ready, to stay out of the cash market. I commend the State of Nebraska for taking the important and necessary steps to protect your producers and save your rural communities. Our federal government has proven that left up to them we will be left without a competitive independent agriculture.
Many packer promoted studies show there is no problem with captive supplies.
Any feedlot manager with a Monday morning showlist knows this is untrue. Some of the studies related concentration to the level of prices, and others to price-cost margins computed by the Bureau of the Census. The studies were also interested in looking for critical levels of concentration. If they could be identified they would be very useful to public policy considerations. In other words, industries with that level of concentration or lower are effectively competitive.