Dear Sir,
It appears that demand for beef is on the upswing. I quote Mr. Les Messinger, a well-known futures trader from Chicago:

"We also continue to hear a good deal of 'garbage rhetoric' about how our main problem is poor or reduced beef demand. Beef demand remains so 'poor' that retailers continue to show record profits while the world's largest beefpacker showed a first quarter profit increase of slightly over 400 percent. Demand remains so poor that during the past six weeks of very heavy cattle slaughter (over 680,000 per week average), packers received an increase on lightweight choice boxed beef of $6.08 per hundredweight. The price on March 31 was $104.11 compared with the price today of $110.19 per hundredweight. Despite this increase in wholesale beef prices, we see that not only has none of it been passed on to the producer, but rather the producer is now looking at a live market that is $2 per hundredweight lower than it was a month ago."

Demand for beef is excellent. Boxed beef prices last year were about $102 per hundredweight and live cattle prices were about $66 per hundredweight. Last week boxed beef sold for $110 to $111 per hundredweight. The very best market-ready steers averaged $63.50 per hundredweight.

Those in the know keep telling us who produce that the problem is demand. Get the demand up and the price will go up! What is good for the packer is good for the producer. Not so!! The packer is paying $2 to $3 less per hundredweight for market-ready cattle while he receives an additional $8 to $9 for boxed beef due to increased demand. Has any of "What is good for the packer is good for the industry" been passed on to producers who are losing their livelihoods? No!!!

The president of the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, Mr. George Swan, wrote a letter to beef packers requesting they pass some of the profits from increased beef demand on to the producer. They thumbed their noses at Mr. Swan.

We have a severely limited market for our fed cattle. We no longer market our market-ready steers and heifers. We simply ask what the packer will pay. Often the buyer hasn't even seen the cattle. He just wants to know how long they have been on feed. Gone are the days when several buyers would look at the pen on Monday or Tuesday morning and offer to bid on the cattle. Now the live cattle market is only open for a short period of time on Wednesday, and it is not a market. You offer the cattle as ready for slaughter with no position for negotiation.

The demand for beef has raised the wholesale price of boxed beef enough for market-ready steers to bring $68 to $70 per hundredweight, but the one or two offers you receive are for $63.50. There is not enough competition. There is no alternative for you. The cattle are ready. You have to move then or they will get too big. It is the most frustrating thing in the world to have a good set of market-ready steers that you know the packer will make another $100 of profit per head on, and none of it will be passed on to you.

Next time you hear an industry person or some economist or forecaster say the problem is beef demand, you call him a liar. Beef demand is excellent and continues to improve. The thing we have worked so hard to make happen is happening, but we are not receiving the rewards. Your Check-Off dollars are at work making the meat packers of this country wealthier. There is much misconception about the impact of supply and demand on beef prices. It is time for a new set of rules!!

Max Thornsberry
President, Missouri Cattlemen's

Dear Sir,
The worm finally seems to be turning, as beef is beginning to receive renewed and well-deserved respect as a superb, nutrient-rich, health-giving food.

Recent attention has focused on its conjugated linoleic fatty acid content, which serves as a valuable metabolic regulator: CLA moderates insulin levels, which in turn reduces problems with obesity and the risk of diabetes and heart disease; CLA also blocks tumor growth. Interestingly, CLA content is reported to be highest in grass-fed beef.

Beef supplies many other valuable fat factors as well. Among them are the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K, which aid in mineral uptake and protein utilization needed to build good teeth and bone structure and healthy immune systems in our children.

Beef's complete protein, rich enzyme and mineral content, and its natural fat factors are important as well to adults and the elderly, as we also require high quality food in order to repair and rebuild diseased and damaged body organs and functions from the cellular level on up.

Beef's chief competitors — the cheap oil/margarine industry, the "junk" carbohydrate processors, the synthetic vitamin and supplement manufacturers — have been waging an untrue and unfair propaganda war against beef and its natural fat for many years. The truth is finally beginning to come out: the real human health culprits are heavily refined and processed sugars and starches and heat-extracted vegetable oils.

Unrestricted use of beef, including its natural fat, is increasingly recommended as an important part of almost any successful corrective and preventative diet aimed at improving the average American's health and well-being. In other words: the only thing better for you than being a vegetarian is eating one!

Jeanne Charter
Shepherd, Montana