Dear Sir,
It continues to amaze me that so many market analysts and University economists continue to ignore the impact of increasing import supplies on our U.S. cattle market. They are the first to tell us how great exports have been for U.S. cattlemen, but they ignore the increase in beef and live cattle imports and that impact. What part of the supply-price relationship don't they understand? Who are they protecting?

Over a year ago one of the major market analysts submitted a price-supply model to USDA showing that "historical supply-price relationships" show that for every 100 million pounds’ change in beef supply there is a 40-cent cwt. impact on prices for fed cattle. That would be nearly 80 cents cwt. for calves. We import around four billion pounds of live cattle equivalent and beef, and export around two billion pounds. Using this gentleman's model and on a net trade basis (imports minus exports), U.S. cattlemen may well be losing $100 per head.

NCBA's Chief Economist, Chuck Lambert, reported in 1997 that a "10 percent change in supplies would have a 15-20 percent impact on price." Look at just the increase in imports from Canada the last 10 years as reported by USDA.

U.S. imports of Canadian live cattle: 1987, 262,000 — 1997, 1,377,000.

U.S. live cattle exports to Canada: 1987, 33,000 — 1997, 41,000.

U.S. imports of Canadian beef: 1987, 191 million pounds — 1997, 712 million pounds.

U.S. beef exports to Canada: 1987, 37 million pounds — 1997, 283 million pounds.

Of U.S. beef supplies, Canadian imports have increased from around one percent in 1987 to nearly seven percent in 1997. Just the increase in imports (six percent) alone from Canada impacted prices to the U.S. Cattlemen from nine percent to 12 percent.

The American Farm Bureau reported to the U.S. International Trade Commission that just the increase in live imports in 1995 (which was 700,000 head) cost the U.S. cattle industry from $500 million to $700 million. They're just talking about the increases and not total cattle imports, which in 1998 will be well over two million cattle with beef imports projected to be nearly 2.5 billion pounds or the equivalent of an additional 3.5 million cattle. No wonder USDA projected this fall that the U.S. cattle industry would wean the smallest calf crop since 1951.

It's also interesting to note that these studies only address supply-price relationships. They do not address the downward pressure on the U.S. market that "dumped" beef and cattle have had on U.S. cattle prices.

The damage being done to this industry by unfair trade practices is intolerable and the nonsense being used by some of these folks to distort the economic harm is inexcusable.

Leo McDonnell Jr.
R-CALF President
Columbus, Montana

Dear Sir,
The view from my ranch ... I wonder why in the world any rancher or farmer would not vote for Rick Perry. He does an outstanding job for agriculture. He is a rancher from a ranch family. If Bush runs for president and wins, who better to take his place? We win on both deals.

Is the Farm Bureau representing us? The TSCRA left the Lt. Governor spot blank on the endorsement, trying to avoid the issue.

Wake Up! If the public is to know about ag and our problems, you better put somebody in office who knows rural Texas. Common sense ... the rural U.S. is less and less represented.

Richard Thorpe
Winters, Texas