Putting Steak on a Plate
The magazine photo of the juicy steak surrounded by condiments caused my mind to flash back through the events of the past week.
Everything I had done pushed toward that steak on that plate.
First, I weaned my calves.
Saturday was a bluebird fall day, warm and sunny with a light wind, a perfect day to kick calves out of their milk-filled nest.
My daughter, Abby, and I saddled up.
Last week’s snow had laid a lot of the grass flat, but the cows grazed contentedly, raising their heads to watch us pass, slowly turning toward the corral when we nudged an equine nose toward a bovine hip.
Slowly, oh so slowly, mamas and babies crowded into the pen, Abby and I cajoling them as they funneled through the gate.
After that, a quick sort left the wet-nosed calves with plenty of hay and the cows with time to pour energy into their next offspring.
Within a year, these calves would be ready to take the same one-and-only ride of their lives that some yearlings took a few days before.
On Thursday, I had hauled a trailer load of steers to the processor, already sold as cut-and-wrapped beef to longtime customers. The difference between this trip and most was that I changed a flat tire before I loaded the steers and got on the road instead of afterward.
Easy peasy.
I’ve been selling beef directly to people for a long time, but now many of my friends and neighbors also are rebelling against the Big Four packing companies who enjoy more than 80 percent market concentration.
They started selling directly to consumers, too.
That is a win-win for everyone.
Except the Big Four international processing companies, that is.
In the past, the margin between the price of live steers at the auction and the price of boxed beef has been so narrow that the extra effort, time and expense of making cattle into beef was not worth it for most ranchers.
But within the past year or two, extremely wide margins tempted many cattle producers who might be teetering on the brink of insolvency.
Even lean machine ranches have struggled to break even while the Big Four companies struggled to spend all of their loot before tax time came along.
Fortunately for all of us, Montana state and local permitting authorities are breaking down barriers so we can sidestep the powerbrokers who throw just enough peanuts to the monkeys in the cage to keep them from starving.
With state policy upgrades, we don’t need to wait for the Feds to do what is right and enforce antitrust laws. After all, the Sherman Antitrust Act passed back when processors held about a quarter of the market share, far less than 80 percent.
So last week when my local processor needed a permit to build a small yet federally-inspected processing plant, I was ready to testify in support.
Small is beautiful – a small environmental footprint that creates long term jobs and helps add value to Montana’s largest commodity.
The bottleneck of processing live cattle into beef expanded when the Cascade County Zoning Board of Adjustment approved a permit to build a 50-head per week plant just outside Great Falls.
Once it is built, this plant will be the only federally-inspected plant within 150 miles.
My fellow North-Central Montana neighbors and I who want to sell beef beyond the borders of Montana soon can.
Legally.
And profitably.
As I waited to voice my support via the phone, the glossy magazine photo reminded me of why I do what I do.
I like to put healthy beef on someone’s plate.