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Eastern Ohio |
The group is asking the President to take five emergency stopgap measures:
1.Direct lenders to grant emergency extensions of loan repayment deadlines and provide essential emergency operating funds.
2.Grant federal capital gains tax relief for farmers selling land, cattle, and equipment to remedy their current financial plights.
3.Eliminate the red tape that prevents state-inspected beef plants from selling beef across state lines to increase competition for cattle and eliminate the current bottleneck in beef distribution to consumers.
4.Suspend the decision to allow raw beef from disease-affected Brazil.
5.Direct the U.S. Department of Justice to immediately investigate the cause of this week's inexplicable market volatility marked by severely depressed cattle prices and skyrocketing wholesale beef prices.
The letter also asks the President to take two additional measures that the group states are the real relief America's cattle industry needs because, with Congress' help, they will provide the means for cattle producers to remain successful - "a fully competitive marketplace and the tool they need to compete within it."
That relief includes:
1.Placing immediate limits on the percentage of cattle that packers can procure through arrangements that both circumvent and undermine the competitive cash market (to preserve the integrity of our industry's nearly destroyed price discovery market, which, importantly, informs our industry's futures market).
2.Requiring all beef sold in America to be distinguished as to where the animal from which it was derived was born, raised, and harvested so American consumers can put American cattle producers First and choose to purchase safe, wholesome, exclusively American beef.
The letter concludes by asking the President for a brief face-to-face meeting "to concisely discuss the fundamental needs of the U.S. live cattle industry."
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FYI R-Calf Statement
