A Beef Industry Article
I was asked to write an article summarizing what happened to the beef industry during our COVID-19 pandemic.
The article is targeted to a general audience in Montana. These are people who love a good steak, might have been laid off for a while, became worried about empty shelves in the grocery stores and watched ground beef prices rise from $3 to $8 a pound within a few months.
I used to make a living writing articles about agriculture. I enjoyed telling the stories of Montana farmers and ranchers, illuminating the issues we all face and highlighting innovative ideas that might help my neighbors.
But I haven’t written for a magazine for several years now. Magazines need photos to draw readers to the page and every time I left to take photos at someone’s ranch, something at my ranch died because I wasn’t home to help.
Yet, when the editor called to ask for a three-part series to thoroughly explain what cow-calf producers have faced in the past year, I jumped at the chance.
I wanted readers to know about the weaknesses and injustice because of concentration in the cattle market.
The years of planning that goes into keeping a ribeye in the grocery store cooler.
The financial impacts of chaotic federal policy shifts.
I wanted readers to know we all are in this pandemic together: Cow-calf producers are doing their best to keep Montanans fed and many struggle to stay in business so they can feed people next year, too.
I started with the fire at the Tyson processing plant in Holcomb, Kansas, last August.
It was just a year ago, but it is already hard to recall that Friday night flame that immediately plunged the market down by 6 percent.
All fall, we heard the flimsy excuses from processing executives about required efficiency so Americans can afford to buy our premium product.
Meanwhile, the spread between fed cattle and boxed beef jumped to more than $60, three times the average spread.
Processors were getting rich on the backs of the cowboys.
Then I wrote about February’s sudden reversal in import policy, when U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue announced that Brazil would be allowed to send fresh beef to the U.S. despite evidence of corruption and collusion among international processors and Brazilian meat inspectors.
The wobbly market, still staggering from a blaze that lined the pockets of the Big Four processors, fell off its wall again.
The typical seasonal price bump shattered like Humpty Dumpty.
By May, processing plants closed because line workers were sick and dying.
Cows that would bring $800 in February were now worth $600.
Most ranchers need each cow to provide at least $800, one way or another, every year, just to break even. Many need $1300 or more just to pay the bills.
My article was packed full of numbers, statistics and evidence of injustice.
But it was so boring.
I struggled.
Then I recalled my high school journalism teacher’s advice: Tell the reader why she should care.
The reader cares about feeding her family.
She cares about the land.
She cares about her neighbors.
My friends, Seth and Jennie Becker, ranch about 20 miles from me as the crow flies. The Valier cattle producers have two young boys and an infant daughter.
Seth and Jennie want their kids to learn to take care of the land, water and wildlife.
They want their kids to learn compassion for helpless babies who need to stay warm and fed, just as they do.
They want their kids to learn to look at a problem and figure out a solution instead of giving up.
The reader doesn’t care about the money or the statistics, but she cares about the Becker family.
As she should.
I rewrote my article.