MCOOL is the COOL Thing to Do!

Today, we discuss Mandatory COOL (Country of Origin Labeling) for local ranchers. We have Bill Bullard, Chief Executive Officer of R-CALF USA. We also have DRC leader, David Schwalbe who is one of many DRC members fighting for COOL.

For years, beef producers have been getting the short end of the stick and consumers have been deceived on the beef that they are buying. We can change that so that ranchers can survive and prosper and the American consumer can be protected and buy American beef!

To support producers and consumers, please CLICK HERE to take action!

You can also call Sen. Cramer, (701) 699-7020, and urge him to support the American Beef Labeling Act (S.2716) today!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:17

Welcome to the Dakota resource council podcast here on a nice spring day in December. The weather is warm. Still, not a lot of moisture around here. Hopefully we, we get something, whether it's rain or snow, but not, not too much snow. I mean, I, I try to retire after college to Arizona just because I didn't like snow, but apparently they want you to pay those student loans back. So, uh, here I am in room at North Dakota. We got a good podcast here today. We're gonna be discussing mandatory. Cool. And, um, that is, that is kind of a hot topic right now. It's something that DRC members are pushing for. And, uh, we got, uh, a couple of gentlemen here who know about the subject. One of them is Mr. Bill Bullard. He joined R a USA as the organization's first chief executive officer at the national headquarters in billings Montana. In April of 2001, bill has testified on behalf of R calf USA members before Congress and other executive branch agencies. He's managed numerous lawsuits on behalf of the organization and is the organization's registered lobbyist, uh, just a little personal, uh, info on Mr. Bullard. He's, uh, formerly a cow calf rancher out of Perkins county, South Dakota. He served as the executive director of the South Dakota public utilities commission from 1995 to 2001. And he has a bachelor's in science from black Hills state university. One of the most beautiful universities in South Dakota. I mean to go get your degree in a, in the black Hills is something I really should have done aimed for. And, uh, he also completed a year of graduate studies at the university of South Dakota. Also on the podcast today, we have DRS see leader, Mr. David Schwabe, uh, Schwabe, a lot of, you know, he's a retired lifelong rancher who grew up on a beef operation ranch in, uh, the Badlands of Western North Dakota. It's an NDSU grad in the sixties, uh, with a degree in agriculture. And he's also featured in the New York times article for his work against a corruption and oil country and, uh, North Dakota government. He's on the board of the North Dakota for public integrity, which led to the addition of, uh, north Dakota's first, uh, ethics amendment in the state constitution. And, uh, he believes that a good environment leads to a healthy ranching operation and a good ranching operation leads to a healthy environment. So we got two guy guys who know what we're talking about today. Bill David. Nice to see you, both, uh, bill. How, how are things now? Are you in billings Montana? Yes, I am. Okay. Gotcha. And, uh, David, how are you doing, how are things here in North Dakota and near part of the country

Speaker 2: 3:01

Beautiful day? And we actually got a little moisture this fall. It's probably greener now than it was in August. So things are looking up and we are hopeful for next year. Well today's

Speaker 1: 3:13

Topic is mandatory. Cool. And I know we do have a lot of ranchers that, uh, listen to the podcast. Um, a lot of our members too, have not grown up on a farming or a ranching operation. So, uh, this might be something new. Maybe they've heard about it, but, uh, mandatory. Cool, cool. Uh, C O O L is a acronym for country of country of origin labeling. And let's start with you, bill. Can, can you give folks the basic definition of what is mandatory? Cool.

Speaker 3: 3:46

So back in the early two thousands out of the recognition that we were increasing imports of many food, commodities and Congress, and many organizations like ours years recognized that consumer deserve the right to be able to differentiate between products that were produced right here in the United States versus products produced elsewhere, uh, in the world. And so a mandatory country of origin labeling law was passed in 2002 and required retailers to label, uh, products. At the time. It was beef, pork, lamb, chicken, fruits, and vegetables, uh, fish and shellfish and distinguishing between farm raised and wild fish. And then a number of different kinds of nuts, macadam nuts, peanuts and ging. So we had a comprehensive, mandatory country of origin. Labeling law passed in 2002 that gave two consumers the information they needed to make, um, uh, purchasing decisions, uh, based on where they want their food produced. So it's a very important law. Uh, and presently as we'll talk about later, uh, beef and pork are now both outliers. They are no longer required to be labeled. David. What

Speaker 1: 5:00

About you? Do you have, have anything to add on the history of, of cool, just even here in North Dakota? Well,

Speaker 2: 5:07

Cool. Is one of those laws or acts, acts that needs to be implemented. Again, I grew up in the Badlands saw the best times saw the worst times we had a good run for a while and after they exempted beef and all these other products from the country of original labeling, you saw the prices go down, you see, you saw the ranchers going out of business. You saw the people struggling, and the time is right for it to come back. Now, I always say that cool could be labeled the rancher consumer protection act because not only does it benefit the ranchers, it also benefits the consumers on the other

Speaker 1: 5:49

End. That's good stuff. And that that's a, a good definition from both you and on the history and what it is. And a lot of people are asking, you know, how, how does it affect the cattle prices, which I think we with with beef prices right now, how does cool affect the prices right now in the country? So,

Speaker 3: 6:08

Um, right now consumers are paying inflated prices for beef all time record high prices for beef, but at the same time am the cattle prices paid to America's farmers and ranchers are seriously depressed. And this has been going on for seven years. Uh, so this is, this is not a, uh, isolated incident. This is a problem. And so what we have is a complete disconnect between the value of beef that consumers purchase and the price of cattle that our American farmers and ranchers receive. The relationship that used to be a harmonious and synchronous relationship has been completely fractured. And one of the reasons that that has occurred is because the meat Packers have become so concentrated where you have four of'em controlling 85% of the fed market. They have unlimited access to imports of beef from about 20 countries, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, 20 different countries. And so right now, because consumers do not know the origins of the beef they're purchasing at the grocery. That means the packer has unilateral control over where to source the beef to satisfy consumer demand. So when a consumer goes to the grocery store today and selects a beef product, the packer decides where to obtain the cattle in the beef. And it can be in any one of the 20 countries doesn't have to be in the United States. And so competition is, has been purged from our industry. Uh, it's not functioning properly because we rely on the consumer to initiate competition. They initiate demand signals every time they purchase a product. So when we had country of origin labeling, and when we get country of origin, labeling back for beef, that when a consumer goes to the grocery store and decides for whatever reason, whether they wanna buy the product that is produced under the, uh, most stringent health and safety standards in the world, and that's the USA product, or if they wanna support the domestic supply chain, they wanna support their neighboring farmers and ranchers. When they make that decision and purchase a product that's says born, raised and harvested in the United States of America, they then initiat a demand signal. It goes to the packer, the packer can go to one source and one source only to satisfy that demand. The packer has to go to America's farmers and ranchers, and that's gonna help strengthen rural communities, rural America, all of America is gonna make our markets work. Uh, and so that's why it's so vitally important.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Okay. And then, so, you know, we have, you know, the country of origin labeling and, and, and product of the USA. People have seen that. What, what is the difference between the two there?

Speaker 3: 8:55

So country origin labeling, uh, because of the multi segmented, um, production steps in producing beef, you can actually have animals imported from Mexico and then fed and raised in the United States of America and then harvested in the United States. Um, so a product of USA labeled does distinguish those production steps and so mandatory country of origin labeling does. And this is the distinction. So under mandatory country origin labeling the beef product is labeled as to where the animal was born, where it was raised and where it was harvested. And so consumers could then decide accurately whether to purchase an exclusively, uh, produced USA product. It would be one that is born, raised and harvested in the United States, or they could choose to purchase a product that is partially or wholly imported a product that was born in Mexico, raised in the United States and harvest in the United States, for example, or a product from Costa Rica would be their choice. And so that's, um, that's mandatory country margin. Labeling product of USA is merely a label that says product of USA. And right now that label is being, uh, terribly misused. Consumers are being deceived because under current law and regulation, the, a importer or a packer can import a product beef product from Costa Rica, uh, in a big box, bring it to a processing facility, take it out of the big box and put it in smaller boxes or smaller packages. And when they do that, they can throw the Costa Rica country wards and label the garbage, and they can replace it with a product of USA label. So consumers, when they're purchasing beef today, and they say a product of USA label that does not accurately denote where that product came from. So that's the difference. You have to have the three production steps in order to, uh, ACC the multi segmented supply chain for me.

Speaker 1: 11:00

So David, you know, on that, how, how did the, like the product of the USA label, the, the history of that label, how did that change things for ranchers?

Speaker 2: 11:09

It cut back on their market. Uh, uh, Mr. Bullard hit on a couple of topics. And when I was back in college in the sea sixties, I worked for the veterinarian in the afternoons. It was my afternoon class evening class. We'd go to some of the big feed, lots in the area, and there were some fairly good size when we furnished drugs to these areas, you saw those feed lots, start to disappear. You'd see these big trucks coming outta Canada. There'd be 10 in a con boy, all loaded with fat cattle, heading for Sioux falls, heading for Sioux city Iowa year after year, you saw these feed lots start to disappear because they could no longer come compete with the Canadian exchange rate, which was out it's about 32, 30 3% exchange rate. So it was cheaper to call Canada and say, Hey, I need 800 head to slaughter Wednesday morning than it was to come to North Dakota and buy that same 800 head. So you saw these disappear, you saw the veterinary clinics disappear. It took a whole industry. It hurt main street. It hurt us bad, and you go down there now there's no feed, lots left. There's no market for that feed. It has had a terrible effect. And Mr. Bull pointed out the, the, uh, consumers need to know where their beef is coming from. If I'm a consumer sitting in New York city, and I am an sort of an environmentalist, just like to see where my money is going south, south America is on a slash and burn program. They're clearing their lands. They're adding to the carbon content of the world. Our dollars are going down there to support that type of activity. Yet our government is spending millions to cut methane, uh, uh, output, but our consumer dollars are going down there to encourage that type of thing. So as a consumer, I need to know if my dollars are going to support these type of dictators or leaders in those type of activities. I'd like to protest with my dollar.

Speaker 1: 13:11

Yeah. And I, I think a lot of people would, and, and just moving on now, the, the NC B asked to change the label from product of the USA, uh, bill to processed in the USA. Uh, how, how would that change things for, for ranchers and, and mainly even North Dakota ranchers?

Speaker 3: 13:29

Well, that would be terrible for both ranchers and for consumers. Because again, that would lead to a misleading label. For example, we currently import about 2 million head of live animals from Mexico and Canada as, as David indicated. And what the NCBA wants to do is to say that the origin of a product is wherever that animal was harvested or pro. So that's, that's the Genesis of this, uh, labeling concept is to not disclose to the consumer that the animal wasn't produced by a American farmer or rancher instead, it was purchased cheaper from a foreign country. And these countries do not have same level of production, uh, standards as we have to follow in the United States, no veterinary biologics, uh, quality of water. Um, there are many, many differences between animals that are produced in the United States versus those that are produced in Brazil and Argentina and elsewhere, and, and many cases developing countries. And so that's why that label is just plain dangerous, just plain wrong. Um, but that's what they're trying to do. And importantly, right now we import about 2 million ahead of cattle from Canada and Mexico, but maybe tomorrow we'll be importing 500,000 head from Australia or New Zealand or Brazil. Uh, the default position is we have open borders even for live animals. The only reason we're not bringing in more live animals today from these foreign countries is because of the persistent disease problem. In many of these are pernicious diseases, uh, around the world. So that's why this label is so dangerous and why mandatory country wars labeling identifying the three production steps is so critical.

Speaker 2: 15:23

Mr. Mueller pointed out that we have the best beef in the world. We have spent millions at our ag research universities developing good quality cattle methods of feeding them. Our ranchers have spent millions upgrading their herds, getting a good quality product. Our U S D a through their beef inspection has spent millions with beef inspection plans, beef inspection technology. Yet the consumers have no way of knowing where their beef is coming from. They footing the stuff that's been produced in other countries on the same playing field with the stuff that's been produced in the United States. To me, that is not right. Consumers are not dumb. They need to know where, what they're eating and where it's coming from. Yeah,

Speaker 1: 16:10

That's all, uh, it's a lot, lot to take in here. And, uh, it just shows how complicated and deceiving it all can be. You wanna know where it's coming from. And, and you know, some of us, we've got friends who are in the ranching business and, and luckily we've got friends south of Mandan. We know where it's coming, we know what they're feeding them. And, and, and I think a lot of people would like to know that and where it's coming, moving on the Packers and stockyards here. Uh, what, what is the background of the Packers and stockyards act bill, and, um, what changes to it have been made that have been bad for ranchers

Speaker 3: 16:47

Packers and stockyards act, um, was passed clear back in 1921. And it was passed out of a, uh, recognition that the working conditions and packing plants were terrible and that the major Packers at the time, there was five large Packers controlled about 60% of the market, a little bit less of the fed cattle market, and that the Packers were eventually engaging in practices that were, uh, de deceptive for producers. They were unfair, they were discriminatory. And essentially they were, uh, preventing America's cattle producers from receiving a competitive price for their cattle. And so that was the impetus for the passage of the Packers and yards act that, that through statute, uh, prohibited Packers from engaging in unfair, deceptive and unjustly discriminatory practices, or from giving preferences and advantages to some of their, uh, preferred cattle feeders and not to the independent feeders, like David talked about that have dropped like flies from our industry. We've lost 75% of our farmer feeders just in the past 25 years. And so the Packers and stock yard act was supposed to prevent that from occurring, but it didn't it's because it, it collected dust on the shelf because it was not ever properly enforced for 100 years. And only now has the, uh, the, this president administration said, we, we need to implement rules in order to properly administer and enforce this very important law that actually went beyond our us antitrust laws. The, those would be like the Sherman and Clayton act that were designed to prevent monopolies that are harmful to consumers. This was a law, the Packers and stockyards act was a law that recognized that the, the livestock industry was unique, that the, that it was the conduct of the Packers that could, um, squelch competition for are the hundreds of thousands of independent cattle farmers and ranchers across the United States. And so that's what we've experienced as a result. We've lost 40% of all of our, uh, cattle, beef, cattle operations in the United States. Uh, as I indicated, we lost 75% of our small farmer feeders, the ones that used to support main street, they're gone to the a, um, and so our industry is shrinking and shrinking at an alarming rate. And so the reemphasis on this 100 year old act is extremely important today, and the rules must be implemented in order to ensure that the cattle producers actually receive the protections. Congress intended the him to have 100 years ago. David, do you have anything to, to add to the Paterson

Speaker 2: 19:36

Stockyards act? He just talked about a subject that I've been interested in for a long time, as you know, the Roosevelt we've laid claim to him. He was a rancher in Western North Dakota. He's one of what I consider one of our better presidents. When he took over his president in 19 one, we had six beef Packers that controlled 50% of the beef packing industry. And Mr. Roosevelt thought that was too much well today, we've got four Packers in control of 85% of the market, and no one in Washington, even bats. And I, Mr. R L took over, he had over 40 antitrust suits going. He broke up these cartels, I'll call'em cartels, cuz that's what they are. They're cartels. And, and then Upton Sinclair book came out on the, on the, uh, the jungle. And he talked about the packing conditions in Chicago, which led to the misuse of our immigrant labor and the abuses of our immigrant labor. So Mr. Roosevelt got these laws put into place. He also got fairness and truth and labeling laws put into place. And like Mr. Bullard said, they've been ignored. They're there, but no one's enforcing them truth in labeling laws have been on the books for a long time, but we have, they have, our politicians have managed to, to work their way around it. Somehow. Mr. Roosevelt also said that capitalism is good, good business is good for the country. Good profits show that you've got a good industry that's being run right. And being, but you have to have a rule of reasoning for business and what's going on right now is not reasonable. It is about as unreasonable bulls it can get and people are suffering because of it.

Speaker 1: 21:31

So Mr. Bullard, how, how can this be reformed? Is there anything that we can do to reform the Packers and stockyard

Speaker 3: 21:37

Act? Well, indeed we can, uh, work with our us department of work with the us department of agriculture, which is right now in the process of promulgating rules with which to implement the Packers and stock yard act a hundred years late, but, um, I guess better, late than ever. Yeah. And the other way is through statute, uh, because the, uh, our agency, the U S D a did not properly enforce the Packers and stock yard act for so long, the courts have taken cases up and did not have the benefit of the agency with the technical expertise to interpret con Congress', uh, intent. And so the courts have attempted to do that and they got it wrong in many instances. So we have bad case law out there that further prevents the proper implementation of the Packers and stock yards act. So the rule making is very important to essentially establish a, a clear line of, uh, that the meat Packers cannot cross in terms of their purchasing, uh, processes. And so, um, that's one way. And then to statute, we can further clarify and in fact, kind of modernize the Packers and stuff, ARDS act, and, uh, a bill has been introduced to do that. It's Senate bill 32 85, and it was introduced by, um, Senator Corey Booker, a non cattle state Senator he's as far away from cattle countries, you can get he's from New Jersey. Um, but he's, he came to us and asked for assist and said, what is necessary to reform the broken cattle market in order to ensure fairness and equity for both producers and consumers. So we've worked with him for a couple years in the drafting of this bill and this bill does what you asked, and that is what can be done. Uh, this bill combined with the, the ongoing rule making process are, are the two steps necessary in order to make the system work again for consumers and for producers. And importantly, the cattle, industry's a larger segment of American agriculture. It generates about 67 billion in cash receipts, just from the sale of cattle. That means if we want to look at an industry with the potential to revitalize rural America and rural communities, this is the one. And that further elevates the importance of, uh, the statutory reforms and the, um, administrative reforms.

Speaker 1: 24:03

So what, what are some of the on the table to, to fix it? Some of the, I mean, deep inside, if, if you have that on hand or if,

Speaker 3: 24:10

You know, yeah. So, um, presently the, the meat Packers that are highly concentrated as David indicated, had figured out how to procure cattle from cattle producers without having to compete for them. So they, they perfected disability in the poultry and the hog industry, you know, we wiped out, uh, 90%. I'll say that again. We wiped out 90% of America's hog farmers, because we did not enforce the Packers and stock yards act that's from 1980 to today, 90% are gone. And that means, uh, we've lost a lot of economic activity in many, many rural areas. And so what this, uh, bill does, Senate bill 3, 2 85 is at number one, it addresses what we call CAPTA supplies. And that was the means by which the Packers could circumvent competitions. So rather than to compete for the cattle, they told to produce the only way you're gonna have timely access to the market that we control. 85% of is if you sign a contract that commits your cattle to the packer, but we do not agree on a price until after you deliver the cattle. So the cattle may be contracted for delivery two months from today, but there is no known price to the per deucer. He has he or she has no idea what he's gonna get, he, or she's gonna get for those cattle. And so the Booker, uh, uh, reforms, this, it says you cannot have a contract for cattle that are harvested more than seven days out, unless that contract includes a firm base price that can be equated to a fixed dollar amount at the time the transaction occurs vitally important. The second thing it does is the Packers also learn. They could circumvent competition by owning their own cattle, rather than feeding cattle, uh, or buying cattle from all of these independent producers, cattle, feeders that used to be in North Dakota. The meat tigers decided, well, we'll just buy the feed lots, and we'll just vertically integrate the ends stream. We'll control it. And the, the new bill I'm, I'm gonna call it the Booker bill, thirty two eighty five, the Booker bill bans, packer ownership and control of cattle for more than seven days before slaughter. And then, uh, the bill reco addresses some of these bad court decisions because what the courts have essentially decided is that if a producer like David is harmed by a meat, packer is treated unfairly, or he was deceived. The only way that David could seek protections under the Packers and stockyards act is if he were to first prove that what the packer did to him somehow adversely affected competition in the entire United States cattle market, it's an impossible burden. It, it was an assurance that producers would never be able to, uh, seek the protections. Congress intended a hundred years ago. The Booker bill addresses this as a, that a producer does not have to first approve injury to competition is what it's called in order to be protected under the, uh, uh, the provisions of the Packers and stockyards act. And then importantly, it includes mandatory country wards labeling for both beef and pork, which are now the two outliers, but importantly, it's gonna include dairy products. It wants to include very products. Uh, so consumers could choose from what country they want, their cheese and, and milk produce. Um, so those are some of the, the highlighted, and then the other one is, um, what has happened in the industry as they eliminated competition is they essentially shrunk the cash market where price discovery occurs. And they did that by supplanting competition with these forward contracts that we call captive supplies that we've already talked about. And so what the Booker bill does is says all of the largest beef Packers and each of their 24 plants that they own must purchase at least 50% of their cattle in the, to dip cash market, uh, thereby re igniting the forces of competition that have been extinguished in our industry. Now for several years, many years, David, any reaction to that?

Speaker 2: 28:17

No, Mr. Bullet explained it very, very well. Yeah. That, and I had the privilege of getting to meet with, uh, Corey Booker's staff this summer as DRC set up a meeting and they were good people sincere in what they were doing, really trying to do, you know, what was right for the people in the Midwest. And it was refreshing to see something like that. And one comment, you know, there needs to be a good symbiotic relationship between the ranchers and the consumers. The consumers are kept in the dark. Our news media does not get out there and, and talk about this because it's not a big deal to them. You know, as long as the grocery stores have food on the shelves, nobody's concerned, but this last incidence with the COVID pandemic should have shown people that our supply chain is very delicate. We had people standing in line and sitting in line waiting for food to be handed out. When I was in college, they used to call the United States, the bread basket of the world and the Midwest, the bread bread basket of the whole world. Now we had people standing in line waiting for food during the pandemic. We're producing all of this stuff here, but we cannot get it processed. We cannot get it to, to market, and we cannot get it to the consumers. We're totally reliant upon the big conglomerates that control our food industry. They're sitting in the middle, the ranchers are suffering. The consumers are going hungry and they're sitting in the middle making obscene profits. That's not right. That's not America. That's not what our ancestors found in this country

Speaker 1: 29:55

On that's good. And all this, uh, you know, I, I think that definitely of ring true, uh, during the pandemic. I mean, we saw it even around here in North Dakota and, and when we run to the store and the, you know, early stages of the pandemic, I mean, check out that meat aisle. I mean, I don't think there was any chicken. The beef was very sparse and it was scary. And, and that's, like I said, luckily we have, and friend, you know, south Amanda, where we get our beef from, but not, not everyone has that option. And, and it, it was a scary time. So, uh, moving on with the beef labeling act in the Senate, uh, bill, uh, Senator Hoen, I, I, I do believe he's on, on board with all this.

Speaker 3: 30:39

Yes. So, um, back and September, so quite recently, uh, a bill was introduced by Senator John th and Senator, uh, John th Republican from South Dakota, Senator John tester, a Democrat from Montana and Senator Hoen Republican from your state, North Dakota, um, and a few others have joined the bill to, for mandatory country of origin, labeling for beef here in the United States. So we strongly support that measure again at Senate bill 27 16, we're in the process of working with a loose knit national coalition, consisting of consumer groups, manufacturing groups, farm groups, and labor groups. And we are circulating a joint letter. That's going to be delivered to the us Senate perhaps as early as next week. And the letter is urging each and every one of our 50 senators to co-sponsor this legislation. And to enact it as quickly as possible in order to begin the process of fixing the broken market that is exploiting consumers on one end of the supply chain and consumers on the other. So very important piece of legislation needs to be implemented yesterday.

Speaker 1: 31:54

Yes. And, and, and since you are with AAF, you, you are kind of in the middle of this. All right. I mean, we, we've gotta kind of give credit to where credits due, but, but getting these, uh, senators on board and, and working with consumers, you're just kind of in the middle of this,

Speaker 3: 32:10

Right. We are fighting as hard as we can to give consumers the information they need to choose to purchase products produced by America's family, farmers, and ranchers. Yes, that's

Speaker 1: 32:21

Great. All right. And, and now we've got one other Senator here are in North Dakota that that's not quite on board that Senator Kramer, um, he hasn't either said yes or no, but what, what can our members or listeners do to get, uh, Senator Kramer on this

Speaker 3: 32:35

Call him every day till he is on<laugh>? You know, we're up against some of those powerful economic and political forces ever to March the halls of Washington, DC, these meat Packers, and they're allied, uh, trade associations, uh, are extremely influential in Congress. They've held Congress at bay for a hundred years, you know, for implementing the, the mandatory or excuse me, the Packers and stockyards act. Uh, they now actually cause Congress to repeal country wars and labeling as it relates to beef and pork, which is why they are presently outliers that occurred back in the latter part of 2015. And so, um, these powerful corporations are holding members of Congress at bay. And this could be example of it right here in North Dakota. And the only way to overcome that is if he gets thousands of calls from consumers and cattle producers saying this is important legislation, it's time to represent the its interests of the North Dakota constituents. And that includes both cattle, producers, and cons. So calling every day until he agrees to sign onto this important measure. Yeah. I,

Speaker 1: 33:45

I think that's something we can do. Um, uh, David, do you, do you have anything to add,

Speaker 2: 33:50

Uh, with all of this I do through the years, I have seen ranchers going out of business and I've seen their land being torn up, plowed down. This is native Virgin Prairie grass, which supported wildlife, which supported it was good for the environment. When these ranchers would go out of business, some big outfit would come in, plow it down, start dumping chemicals on it, dump all this stuff on it. It was a terrible disaster because then it would blow away, came into CRP program. Then they put it back in the grass. Then the corn went to$8 at the bushel. So they plow it down again. We need a good policy to keep these ranchers in business. It's good for the environment. And most of these people don't understand that they're importing this beef that should be raised here. These guys, aren't gonna leave this land set. They're empty. They're gonna do something with it. They're paying property tax on it. So they're gonna plow it down or do whatever they can to, to, uh, keep stay in business. So there needs to be a relationship and there needs to be an education program for people other than ranchers, to just how bad the situation is. And that what's going on now is hurting everybody in the United States. We just had a news report here about some of our small schools now have quit serving milk because they can't get it. We have got more reports coming out about hungry kids can't afford to eat. Something needs to be done. And you're right. We need to be bombarding Kramer's office with a lot of phone calls.

Speaker 3: 35:31

And, and for your listeners, Sean, uh, they can call what's called a capital switchboard. They can call 2 0 2 2 2 4 3 1 2 1 and simply say, please connect me with Senator Kramer's office. And, and that's how they can get it. So, 2 0 2 2 2 4 3 1 2 1. But what's important here is the reason we're in the, the decrepit state we're in with respect to our food supply chain is that we have lost sight of the importance of the American family farm and ranch system of agriculture. As David indicated, we were referred to as the bread basket of the world. It's because we had a family farm system of agriculture that was unparalleled the world over and producing an above affordable, uh, safe food supply. But for the past several decades, we've completely ignored their interests. And instead have focused on izing agriculture, industrializing the production processes, centralizing the, the production, and then skeletonizing the supply chain. And the, and that's what the COVID, uh, pandemic showed us is this is a broken system. It's unworkable, it's unsustainable. It put our, it put many consumers in a situation for the first time in history. They went to the grocery store and could not buy the protein they needed for their families. I mean, this was an absolute disaster. The model we're currently supporting, they're still supporting it. It's the industrialized food production model. It's what wiped out all of those 90% of all the hog farmers. That was absolutely the wrong course. So we're gonna have to make some rather radical changes in order to bring back to America, a food system that works for consumers and producers, and that's what we're working towards right now.

Speaker 1: 37:29

Well, and, uh, after this podcast, I think we'll have a bunch of DRC members, uh, uh, working, working on that and not just DRC, but within the, uh, Western organization resource council. So if you're listening to this podcast, um, there will be a link here, you click it. That's gonna be an action item to, uh, get ahold of, uh, Senator Kramer. And also just like bill gave out the phone number. I'll include that here as well. Let's, let's just hound him until we get it and let, let's be the ones to fix this Smith because I think we're all tired of it. And I think the pandemic definitely showed the weaknesses, like you said. And, um, I think it'd be really great if we could just fix the whole dang thing right now. So, gentlemen, I appreciate this. Thank you for coming on today. I know it went a little longer than expected, but this, this is, this is stuff that is not up in the media. This is not on Lester Holts news on NBC, and it should be cuz this is our food system and, and it's broken and um, and we've, we've got a lot of work to do, but I think we got a bunch of listeners that are willing to step up a, a even non ranchers. So, so thank you Mr. Bullard. I appreciate it. Uh, good luck to you. Thank you, David. Thanks for being a leader for DRC. And until then let's, uh, get on the phone lines and emails and, uh, start making a difference.