Democracy/free press

[grassfarmer]

Producers need to be aware of the serious erosion of democracy that occurs when their media is censored and can be bought and controlled by the highest bidder.
Such a situation is occurring in Western Canada today. The Alberta Beef magazine allowed two outrageous columns by their columnist Roy Rutledge to run in the April and May editions. The purpose of these was to attack the NFU and their groundbreaking Livestock crisis document.
Despite pretending to be a broken down rancher Rutledge is in fact a paid employee of Nilsson Bros Inc. This alters significantly the opinions he has and the NFU wanted to inform producers of this critical missing information. AB Beef magazine agreed to print a reply of equal length from the NFU but when they got a copy of the article they turned around and refused to print it. The excuse was that there was no space. Has anyone seen this months edition? guess what .... they still had room for yet another article by Rutledge full of lies and hatred running down the NFU.
What kind of publication allows only one side of the story to be told? I would suggest that is symptomatic of the type of thing that happens in state controlled regimes usually either extreme right or left wing. Why do we accept it in Canada? To add insult to injury it appears most other farm media are unprepared to publish letters in their publications highlighting this serious assault on democracy and giving readers the opportunity to go to the NFU website and read the banned reply.
I find this truly incredible in Canada in 2009. The fact that companies like Nilsson Bros not only have unfair control over the cattle industry they also appear to have control over the media. This is clearly unacceptable in a democracy and further weakens the position of all beef producers. Will producers wake up and take this threat seriously?
To help motivate you please go to http://www.nfu.ca/Rutledge-web.pdf
and read the NFU reply that Western farm media refuse to print.

[farmers_son]

This is piece Grassfarmer is referring to. I had previously pasted it in another thread. Roy hits upon the real reason for the eastern Canada based NFUs interest and I suspect their only interest in the cattle industry...they want the check off money.

This paste comes from Alberta Beef May 2009. Roy Rutledge's column The Truth Hurts.
The Truth Hurts
Roy Rutledge

In my last column in the ABM I criticized the NFU for its pathetic report, "The Farm Crisis and The Cattle Sector," I made some references to the CWB. Some who have read my crass comments have let me know that bringing the CWB into the picture muddied the waters and detracted from the point I was trying to make. Some thought it was unfair because the CWB did not have anything to do with this distorted analyses. No, they didn't. I shouldn't have used them as an example just because the NFU is their biggest supporter. I will try to be more specific this time.

To begin with the NFU analysis starts out by adjusting cattle and beef prices to inflation. That sounds plausible until you ask yourself: What agricultural products have kept up to inflation? If the NFU has the solution to that problem... that would be great. Let's hear it. Singling out one sector of agriculture is frivolous unless you have an underlying agenda for that sector, which they do come to, near the end of their ramblings. They want the check off money.

After the NFU makes its case using distorted figures and distorted statistics they point their finger at consolidation of packers, mega cattle feedlots, captive supplies and export over dependency. Sure these things are all happening but why didn't they examine how much the stock market holds sway over the cattle market? That is, fat cattle and feeder cattle. All of the major feedlots are taking positions on the commodity board every day for cattle, grain and the dollar. Then they bid on the cattle accordingly. There is very little speculation left.

The NFU also points their finger at the CCA for not trying to stop packer consolidation. Is it the CCA's mandate to interfere with business mergers or acquisitions? Consolidation is happening everywhere in every industry. All of the Prairie Wheat Pools, UGG and some smaller grain companies consolidated into Viterra. The NFU is a grain farmer organization. What did they do to stop it? It is a fact of life.

Why are there becoming fewer and fewer packers? Is it because it is a real lucrative business? If it is, there should be plants springing up all over the place. Capital would be easy to come by and we would all want in. I have never been tempted to invest in any new plants because I know that it is a low margin business, like most businesses related to agriculture.

Captive supply is a concern to a lot of people, mainly feedlot operators but they know that most of them wouldn't survive without packer contracts. As far as the cow/calf people or grasser guy like me goes, it is not a concern. When I have a bunch of cattle coming in off grass in the fall I have always enjoyed Lakeside Feeders and others bidding on them, driving the price up. Captive supply cattle do get sold by competitive bid at some or several points in their life.

One NFU solution is single desk selling. Single desk selling is also single desk buying. None of us wants to see fewer packing companies or fewer
bidders, but how is a single buyer likely to drive prices up more than several buyers? We have single desk buying for wheat and malt barley. Spring wheat in 1975 was $5.00/bushel. Using the NFU formula it should be $20.00 today. Durham should be $24.00/bushel today. It is hardly a third of that price today! Obviously, single desk buying is not the solution. The wheat farmer is even further behind inflation than cattle producers. Incidentally, who has more of a captive market than the single desk buyer /seller?

The report also singles out export overdependence. We produce more beef than Canada can eat. We also produce more grain than we can eat. The world price of grain limits the price of grain in Canada. We can blame US subsidies, the CWB or the man in the moon. The fact is we are an exporting country. We have to be able to compete on the world stage. The NFU solution to cattle/beef export overdependence is to limit producers to 140 head each. Yeah right! What is the solution to the grain export overdependence? Should we limit grain farmers to twelve foot cultivators, seed drills and 50 horsepower tractors?

The rest of the NFU solution to export dependency is to go back to the 1960 style of production. Going back fifty years sounds nice but it is naive to think it will solve anything unless the rest of the world turns back too. The NFU has a solution for that too. In bold letters they say "Taxpayer money should go directly to the farmer" Why? Obviously, even they know that their hallucinatory solutions are counter productive and uneconomical. I am not ready to become a ward of the government yet.

Dairy farms are supply managed. Yet, there are far fewer and bigger dairy farms now than thirty years ago. Consolidation. Chicken farms are supply managed. Same thing. Consolidation. Did dairy products or chicken products keep up with inflation? Chicken didn't keep up as well as beef.

I know some (most) of my stories get too long but I can condense the NFU report, "We want the check off money. We want the taxpayer (working stiff's) money. We want membership fees. Praise the Lord and send us your money".

The report is not a complete waste though, I would recommend that it be kept in emergency rooms in hospitals. When a poison victim arrives, he could read this report while waiting for the doctor. It will induce vomiting.

Roy Rutledge is a self opinionated, broken down old cowboy who ranches about forty miles from Dog River, SK.

[jensend]

roy has been an auctioneer long enough to know how to tell a story. as with other auctioneer stories it's the stuff he doesn't tell you that hurts. enough ranchers are waking up to how the industry has been abused and mismanaged that he would keep more of his dignity if he just faded away.

[grassfarmer]

No actually that was only the second of three episodes farmers_son. I see that you are as happy propogating lies as Mr Rutledge is - why would you say the NFU is an Eastern Canadian based organisation? Head officed and based in Saskatoon it is a prairie organisation that that happens to have growing support in eastern provinces too. The NFU has increased their membership (which is entirely voluntary I might add) for the last 7 years consecutively.
As for the assertion that the NFU are only after the check off money - completely untrue. Approaching it's 40th anniversary the NFU has not once in 4 decades applied to receive commodity check-off dollars.

Once again farmers_son you are showing your true colors. Backing a person working for the biggest packer in the country yet pretending to be a simple independent rancher while he misleads and lies to further the interests of Nilsson Bros at the expense of every day beef producers. ABP will be very proud of you.
I will be very disappointed if this thread doesn't go to 50 posts - this is a crucial issue of freedom of press and democracy. It is not some sideline battle the NFU is having with a magazine. I want to hear every contributor to this forum participate as this is a battle producers absolutely must engage in and win.

[grassfarmer]

I will post again the NFU reply that the farm media of western Canada are frightened to print. Read it and see the facts that their corporate paymasters don't want you to know.

Who is Roy Rutledge and
why is he attacking the NFU?

By Darrin Qualman, NFU Director of Research.

When I heard that Roy Rutledge was attacking the National Farmers Union and its report on beef packer and retailer profiteering, my first thought was: Who’s Roy Rutledge?

To find out, I leafed to the end of Mr. Rutledge’s Alberta Beef column—the place in an editorial where there’s often a description of the author. I was in luck; I found a short bio. Mr. Rutledge identifies himself as a “broken down old cowboy who ranches about forty miles from Dog River, SK.”

But that description didn’t ring true; I dug deeper. Sixty seconds on Google revealed Mr. Rutledge’s links to a company called 324007 Alberta Ltd. Intrigued, I soon found that 324007 Alberta is owned by Nilsson Brothers Inc., which also owns XL Foods. Mr. Rutledge is tightly tied to Canada’s largest beef packing corporation.

Several years ago, Mr. Rutledge sold his Assiniboia Livestock Auction to Nilsson-owned 324007. Rutledge was paid to stay on as manager. As an aside, Nilsson Brothers Inc. and its holding companies own (wholly or in part) most of the major auction facilities in Western Canada: Heartland Livestock Services Virden, HLS Lloydminster, HLS Moose Jaw, HLS North Battleford, HLS Prince Albert, HLS Regina, HLS Swift Current, HLS Yorkton, Saskatoon Livestock Sales, Assiniboia Livestock Auction, Weyburn Livestock Exchange, Burnt Lake Auction, Grande Prairie Livestock, Nilsson Brothers Clyde, Nilsson Brothers Vermillion, and Provost Livestock.

One begins to doubt the credibility of someone who titles his column “The truth hurts” but clouds the truth about his own identity—failing to disclose intimate business ties to a major packer. And please don’t misunderstand, this is not what university professors call an “ad hominem” attack—questioning Mr. Rutledge’s character rather than responding to his criticisms. No, I’ll deal with Mr. Rutledge’s criticisms of the NFU report in detail. What I want to establish right off the bat, however, is that Rutledge’s editorials are not a case of some “broken down old cowboy”—not some independent cow-calf producer or even the owner of an independent auction barn—trying to discredit the NFU’s analysis: he’s an employee of Canada’s biggest cattle buying corporation. This is relevant to what Mr. Rutledge has to say, and to how cattle producers should interpret his wild allegations. How we see the world depends on our vantage point and our economic interests. The NFU report reflects the vantage point and economic interests of our thousands of members—farmers and ranchers. Mr. Rutledge’s vantage point is very different.

The NFU is not surprised that a Nilsson Brothers employee would attack our work. “The Farm Crisis and the Cattle Sector” reveals much that packers want kept quiet: profiteering, lack of competition, and the use of captive supplies to depress prices.

The NFU report shows that after remaining relatively high for nearly 50 years, since 1989 cattle prices have moved sharply downward. That 1989 price downturn came when Cargill arrived in Canada and, with IBP/Tyson, rapidly consolidated our packing sector. Compared to the 1980s, today there are fewer packers, fewer plants, fewer bidders, and much lower prices.

Our report is clear: farmers make too little because packers and retailers take too much. That’s something no cattle or farm organization in Canada has said before. And it’s a message that threatens packers.

But back to the Nilsson’s Mr. Rutledge. He makes several points about the NFU and its report. Every one of his points is wrong. Most are complete fabrications. Here’s a sampling of his many, many errors.

The first point Rutledge takes up, in his very first paragraph, is our organization’s opposition to the Nilsson/XL purchase of the Tyson plant. The NFU told the Competition Bureau that having three companies—Tyson, Cargill, and XL—control nearly 100% of fed cattle slaughter was bad enough, but approving the Tyson/XL sale would reduce that number to two. The NFU wrote letters to the Bureau and government urging two alternatives:

1. block the proposed sale and ensure the continued operation of Tyson’s plant until a sale can be arranged to: A. a farmer-controlled co-operative, or B. a buyer who has significant food processing assets but no North American cattle processing facilities; or

2. allow the packing plant sale but require XL to divest 100% of its cattle production, finishing, and marketing assets—its cattle on feed, feedlots, and auction rings.

The NFU never advocated government ownership, as Mr. Rutledge alleges. He simply made that up. Rutledge even fabricates a quotation, saying that the NFU wants “farmer owned, publicly funded” packing plants [his quotation marks]. He made up that quote.

By trotting out the old bogeymen of state ownership and communism, Rutledge tries to steer the debate away from reality: two corporations control Canada’s packing sector. If Rutledge could recognize irony, he might smile to realize that all this fighting for “free markets” has brought us darn close to a centrally-planned (beef) economy.

Next, Rutledge accuses the NFU of distorting statistics. He gives few examples, but one he does give is this:

“The NFU analysis starts out by adjusting cattle and beef prices to inflation. That sounds plausible until you ask yourself: What agricultural products have kept up with inflation?”

Mr. Rutledge must not have read the NFU report. Had he, he would have seen two things:

1. Cattle prices did keep pace with inflation for nearly 50 years—all through the 1940s, ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. Only since 1989 did cattle prices fall behind.

2. Retail beef prices have kept up with inflation. Had packers and retailers not relentlessly increased their percentage take from the consumers’ beef dollars, cattle prices would likewise have kept pace with inflation.

In another error, Rutledge links the NFU to R-CALF. We’ve been clear: The NFU is not working with R-CALF, we have never worked with R-CALF, and we will not work with them in the future. NFU officials have only spoken with R-CALF officials once—as participants in a 14-organization 3-nation meeting in Montana in March. We had no contact with that organization before, none since. Nothing could be clearer.

Mr. Rutledge comments on captive supply. The NFU report is blunt: packers use cattle they own (and other forms of captive supply) to drive down prices for fed cattle and, thus, prices for feeder cattle and calves. The NFU’s top priority is a law banning captive supply.

Amazingly, Rutledge has this to say about captive supply:

“As far as the cow/calf people or grasser guy like me goes, it is not a concern. When I have a bunch of cattle coming in off grass in the fall I have always enjoyed Lakeside Feeders and others bidding on them, driving the price up.”

First, captive supply does matter to cow-calf producers and “grassers”—it drives down the price of their cattle. Second, Rutledge’s comment about “enjoying” the feedlots “driving the price up” on his cattle doesn’t sound like something a cow-calf producer would say: it sounds like something an associate of Canada’s largest packer (and largest holder of captive supply) would say.

Rutledge states, repeatedly, that the NFU wants to get hold of cattle check-off money. False. The NFU is nearing its 40th Anniversary; not once in four decades has it applied to receive commodity check-off dollars.

Rutledge defends packers, saying, that if the sector is profitable, “there should be plants springing up all over.” His error in logic is clear when we consider this: Home Depot and Staples are profitable, but we don’t see independent office supply stores and lumberyards “springing up all over.” The lack of start-up competitors does not indicate that the dominant companies are profitless, it merely indicates they dominate.

Rutledge concocts the crazy idea that the NFU wants to “limit producers to 140 head each.” As one author of the NFU’s report, I can’t stop laughing. What the report says is:

“Though the objectives and strategies for any plan would have to be worked out democratically by farmers and others, the following goal, or one like it, could serve to focus discussion: We should aim for a Canadian cattle sector wherein a well-managed 140-cow cow-calf operation (with some cattle finishing, if desired) provides the lion’s share of a dignified living to a farm family. Similarly, we should also aim for a sector wherein smaller herds on mixed farms can be significant economic contributors to the overall financial well-being of those farms.”

The report is saying a farmer shouldn’t have to run 250 cows just to have a chance at making a living. A key measure of whether we have our cattle policies and economics right is whether a medium-sized cow-calf operation can pay its bills and support a growing family. That Rutledge tries to pervert that point into something about capping animal numbers merely demonstrates his desperation.

For the first time in years, there’s a discussion in Canada about retailer and packer power, who’s pocketing consumers’ beef dollars, captive supply, and effective strategies to raise cattle prices. That discussion threatens the powerful. The NFU report concludes with a prediction: “There will be near-hysterical attacks on those who threaten the status quo.” Mr. Rutledge’s columns are perfect examples of that hysteria. We thank him for proving our prediction correct, and for raising the profile of our report.

[farmers_son]

Just to keep things straight...

The NFU receives a significant amount of its funding from check off like money in PEI and New Brunswick through those provinces Agricultural Producers Registration and Farm Organizations Funding Acts.

I do not defend Roy Rutledge but he does make some points. I may not agree with everything he says but I do defend his right to say it. He is a successful person and yes he does manage an auction owned by Nilsson Bros. so you need to keep that in mind when considering his viewpoints. If the head of Cargill had a column in the paper I would read it and take from it what wisdom I could and ignore the rest. I am quite able to figure out fact from fiction.

I also defend Alberta Beef's right to not publish anything they do not want to publish. It is their newspaper. Believe it or not the NFU viewpoint is not all that well accepted by a lot of western cattle producers. I do agree with some of the NFUs positions but was turned off of them years ago when they had a policy in favour of more government ownership of land. I really had a problem with that. (Not sure if that is still one of their policies or not).

For the most part I regard the NFU as good people who mean well even if they are often misguided and have fallen into the trap of thinking the government needs to solve all their problems. Basically they are harmless.

Grassfarmer: I am thinking you must have gotten some rain. If you were as dry as the rest of us you would have better things to do with your time. If the NFU could make it rain I would join. But I am thinking the NFUs position is that the government should make it rain.

I would point out that you had quite a nice article on you and your operation in the Alberta Beef not that long ago. (Nice picture of your little girl if I recall). Plus a few letters to the editor have been published. You turn on your friends very quickly.

[grassfarmer]

Just to keep things twisted more like fs, - Maybe you can tell us all how much funding the NFU get from the "check off like money in PEI and New Brunswick"? What is "check off like" in your book? Livestock producers in those provinces do not pay a levy every time they sell an animal and contribute it to the NFU - unlike ABP in Alberta.

If you defend Roy Rutledges right to free speech how can you deny that same right to people/groups with other views? I am all about free speech - Rutledge can print what he wants but the day anyone opposing him is unable to print a reply is a serious day for democracy.
The crux of the issue with Rutledge is that he pretends to be something he isn't - claims to be a broken down old rancher when in fact he is a Nilsson employee. Exposing this fact to the many readers who may not have this crucial piece of information is all the NFU are trying to do. Without this information many may not be able to figure out fact from fiction.

Your quote "For the most part I regard the NFU as good people who mean well even if they are often misguided and have fallen into the trap of thinking the government needs to solve all their problems." is interesting from the man suggesting on another thread that the government must give producers 10 year interest free loans, subsidise trucking etc etc. You don't seem to see the irony in the "free enterprise rancher who wants no government help" holding out the begging bowl for aid. Many, many NFU members are in reality more free market minded than the folks at ABP.
No we didn't get much rain, maybe 2/10ths yesterday - we are still record dry, record early. However I choose to manage my own operation and risk - drought strategy and all. It seems you are the one calling on government to make it rain not me.

And finally who says Alberta Beef was my friend? They chose to feature me in an article and solicited their first ever NFU advertisement to run in the same issue.
They didn't forewarn the NFU that this very edition would feature the start of a campaign to discredit the NFU to further the ends of the very corporate interests whose policies are ruining family farmers across this country. Featuring warm, fuzzy articles on producers fighting to protect the future of their farms and then turning around and revealing that they are in fact in bed with the other side shows to me an appalling level of unethical behavior.

[per]

Did I get that right? If an organization receives check-off money as part of their support they loose their credibility?

[farmers_son]

No you did not get that right. I think the point was the NFU receives check off money in other provinces, they want more check off money and that is the extent of their interest in the cattle industry.

[per]

I am as far from a NFU supporter as you fs, but surely you can't believe that. There are some bright folks that have a heart for agriculture, just like you, involved in their organization. They don't seem to be near as concerned about check off monies as the ABP and their report on the industry nailed many points that most wanted not to admit. Rutledge pretending to be an out back rancher just erodes his credibility. I try to teach my kids that who the hang with is how they will be painted. When the cops pull them over they won't buy the good kid hanging with bad kids defence.