At a time when thousands of America’s independent cattle farmers are going under each year, and herds falling to a 70-year low, one young couple believes they have found a way to save their family farm.
Livestock farming is now a far cry from what it once was, when ranchers would sell into competitive markets with prices based on quality, as well as prevailing supply and demand.
Today, four global meatpacking corporations—U.S.-based Cargill and Tyson Foods, and Brazilian-based JBS and National Beef/Marfrig—together buy 85 percent of all cattle in the United States, and many once-independent ranchers have devolved into contract labor for these companies, often selling at prices that don’t cover their costs.
The result has been an aggregate loss of 655,000 cattle farms since 1980, with an average of 20,000 ranches going under per year in America over the past five years.
After years of losing money under this system, however, Avery and Marc Wrigglesworth, owners of Lily Hill Farm in West Point, Georgia, decided to take a different path. The only way to survive, they said, was to build their own market that sells directly to customers. […]
— Read More: www.theepochtimes.com
