Last week, after years of voicing the concerns of independent cattle producers, Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley’s Bipartisan Cattle Market Transparency Bill took center stage at the Senate and House Ag Committee.
Legislation is aiming to improve competition and transparency in the cattle industry, this morning on a call to reporters Grassley shared his thoughts and comments about the comments that were shared by the four beef executives. Saying how the nation’s top meatpackers are ranking in record profits at the expense of our country’s cattlemen.
“I think they took about half their time to say how they’re creating jobs, good paying jobs, safe jobs, and they didn’t really address the issue we’re at-- the justification for their monopolistic approach to having 80 percent of the daily kills or they didn’t talk much about their massive profits over the last year. Farmers may be losing money. They’re sometimes making $1,000 dollars a head and the high cost of beef at the supermarket. I didn’t hear much talk about that,” the Senator explained.
Grassley said that in celebration of National Beef Month, he will give a speech on the Senate floor about cattle production and what farmers are doing to feed the world.
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