OCR Text |
Show 0 Livestock Notes Los Angeles, April 22, 1935 Transportation has always been a dominant factor in the livestock industry. In the days before the railroad, when it was necessary to trail cattle for weeks and even months to get them to a center of consumer demand where they might be sold, the animal at the ranch was practically without value. The trend of transportation has been to constantly shorten the distance, dis-tance, measured in hours, between the producing areas and the consuming con-suming centers. Each year seen a shortening of the transportation hours between the Pacific coast and the middle west, which has gravitated to the benefit of producers pro-ducers in all the western states. The closer in hours the point of production is to the marketing points, the more economical the movement is for the shippers in point of shrinkage and being able to take advantage of favorable market conditions as they develop. California, with a constantly increasing in-creasing consumer demand with which local production has not been able to keep pace, draws live- stock supplies from most of the states west of the Missouri river, so this expedited movement of livestock supplies has proven most valuable not only to western livestock live-stock producers but to the marketing market-ing outlets on the Pacific coast. The flight last week of the clipper clip-per air boat from the Pacific coast to Honolulu makes one wonder if perhaps in our generation genera-tion we may not see the transportation transpor-tation by air of perishable foodstuffs food-stuffs such as dressed meats. At least it is a thought to conjure with when one considers the possibilities possi-bilities of processing meat food animals at central points and transporting the product over wide expanses of country within a few hours. A recent report issued by the institute in-stitute of American meat packers indicates the magnitude of the transportation problem in handling hand-ling ; the movement of livestock and the subsequent distribution of the finished product. In the year 1900 the production of all meats was 12,388,000 pounds and in 1934 the tonnage was 20,182,000 pounds. In the processing of beef cattle alone the volume grew steadily from a total of 5,694,000 pounds in 1900 to 9,035,000 in 1934, or nearly double in 34 years. The total tonnage ton-nage in 1934 was the largest in the history of the Unnited States. This report shows that it required re-quired 9,900,000 cattle, (1,000,000 calves, 15,974,000 sheep and lambs and 43,585,000 hogs to furnish meat supplies in 1934 these animals ani-mals being under federal inspection. inspec-tion. The total would be considerably consider-ably in excess of this when state and city inspected plants are taken into consideration. The 1934 per capita consumption of meat and lard was 152.8 pounds for 1934 as compared with a 34 year average ave-rage of 139.9 pounds. The livestoak industry is fortunate for-tunate in having tran.-portation systems adequate to transport the millions of pounds of livestock required re-quired to supply the central markets mar-kets and to distribute the finished products to the consuming public. |