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Show lirXivestocle AnXMcNAucHro- r ( Los Angeles, California, February 19, 1934 Despite the greatly reduced re-duced buying power of consumers, American people in 1933 were called upon to consume the largest amount of meat in history, or more than a billion pounds more than during 1932 and ten per cent more than during the fairly prosperous days of 1929. It is therefore not surprising that prices paid for livestock were relatively low. Probably the surprising sur-prising thing is that, throughout the depression period, the packing industry in-dustry stood ready and able to pay cash for all livestock offered for sale at public markets.' It adds confi-; dence to the livestock industry toj realize that, more than ever before, the meat business was regarded as a' basic necessity. It must generally be recognized that we had an oversupply of meats during the past year. Pork supplies were especially burdensome, the total actual consumption aggregating eighteen billion pounds in 1933, said by the institute of American meat packers to be the greatest volume of j pork ever before consumed in the United States. Greatly restricted export demands forced practically all of this pork into domestic channels. Thus producers and the industry recognize the value of the hog reducing re-ducing campaign now being carried on by the federal government. But it must also be recognized that there; was much forced marketing during i the last few months of heavy hog receipts in 1933, partly due to need for cash but largely because of rela-j tively high grain prices. Livestock producers generally j have no ill will toward the meat packers. Instead, it is generally recognized that the meat processors and distributors functioned exceptionally excep-tionally well in the face of extreme odds. There would be strenuous objections ob-jections on the part of western stockmen against any federal effort to enter into the meat packing and distributing business. There seems to be no doubt but that the meat packers themselves have developed their industry on a highly efficient basis and have operated on a very narrow margin of profit. There maj be need for greater regulation of the business to assure open and free competition in purchasing livestock, but producers would be the first to register strong protests against anything any-thing smacking of government confiscation con-fiscation or government operation of the meat business. Stockmen would like to see the secretary of agriculture immediately sign a code of fair practices, with proper representation for both producers pro-ducers and packers. There are no evils in the industry which could not be corrected by strict regulation and there certainly does not appear to be any occasion for asything approaching approach-ing government competition with established meat packers. |