R-CALF USA and the Organization for Competitive Markets expressed their pleasure with the announcement that Brazilian-owned meatpacker JBS has abandoned its bid to take over National Beef Packing Company. R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard said this takeover bid was defeated by a combination of aggressive opposition from several groups and said the organization's members should be proud that they have achieved their goal of blocking this monumental, anticompetitive merger.
OCM Executive Director Fred Stokes said this news is extremely welcome and represents a very positive start on what will be a long, hard fight to restore competition to the U.S. cattle market.
"We must now focus our collective efforts on reversing the anticompetitive mergers of the past," said Stokes. "Including JBS' 2008 acquisition of the nation's largest feedlot company when it acquired Smithfield Beef Group."
Since March 2008, R-CALF USA and OCM aggressively opposed the JBS/National Beef merger on the grounds that it would exacerbate the distortions already evidenced in the U.S. cattle market and would strengthen JBS' ability to use packer-owned cattle and other forms of captive supplies to manipulate prices paid to hundreds of thousands of independent cattle producers.
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