Frank Endres, Californian Farmer and Leader of National Farm Organization:
Stop Cartel Destruction of National Food Capacity
Frank Endres, a California farmer (northern
Sacramento Valley) and one of 33 directors on the board of the
National Farmers Organization, is blasting the role of the
cartels in destroying farm output capacity and causing food
shortages. In an interview he gave on May 21 for {EIR} (cover
date May 30), in the context of the international Schiller
Institute mobilization to kill the WTO, meet emergency food
needs, and double world food production, Endres focuses on the
cartel threat for just one company to control 35% of the U.S.
beef supply. New acquisitions by JBS Swift & Co. will give it
this much control. JBS Swift is a division of the beef giant JBS
S.A., based in Brazil, which has been fostered as an arm of world
food control. ......
Endres said: "We're presently in a battle, along with the cattle
organization called R-CALF USA, against this JBS livestock
company out of Brazil, that has just bought out three large
meatpackers and cattlefeeding operations in the United States,
which is going to give them now, over 35 percent of control over
the livestock slaughter in this country. Our action against this
is at the Justice Department right now, and a lot of the
livestock people and other farmers are very, very concerned about
this because this JBS holding company out of Brazil, has been
investigated and fined for taking a monopoly position there, and
controlling the price of cattle in Brazil. And it's really upset
the livestock people down there.
"Now they've moved into this country and bought out three of
these large companies, which will give them a commanding share of
the livestock market here. They bought Smithfield's beef
division, and Five Rivers cattle feeding operations. They are
going to have a one time capacity of over 875,000 head of cattle
in their feeding operations. This is very, very dangerous to have
that much control.
"What these acquisitions do, is further bankrupt the
livestock producer. To produce calves in this country, you can't
do that on a factory type operation, you've got to have
family-owned farming operations and ranching operations all over
the country, in order to produce the start of the whole livestock
industry, and that's the feeder calves. And so they're [JBS]
going to put a monopoly control on that, and it's going to
continue to keep the prices depressed on that.
"Right now, the price on most calves are about 40 percent of
parity, or 40 percent of what we need to pay our bills. And there
is no reason for this. We have a shortage of calves actually, in
this country. If you take the amount of calves for the past 10
years, and the livestock that we produce, the consumption of beef
in this country outstrips the production that we have of beef
cattle in this country. We don't raise enough beef in this
country to feed the people. We are forced to import beef to keep
the people fed." ....
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