Letter to the editor

What Piece Of The Beef Pie - Nixon to Trump?

 

October 18, 2019



My father, a Carter County rancher, would be anxious each November when he would sell his calves, about 100 miles away to the livestock ring in South Dakota. A good price would allow for another year of operation. In my research I came across a spreadsheet from the USDA Economic Research Service with hog and beef market data back to 1970. I decided to check each presidential term for the percentages that the ranch, wholesale and retail get from the total retail value of beef. I tried to use the third year of each presidency term to be consistent, although I added Ford and used Trump’s second year as 2019 values are not available yet. The first percentage is ranch share, second retail share and third retail share. Nixon, 1971, 66.6%, 13.6%, 19.8%. Ford, 1974, 65.0%, 9.9%, 26.1%. Carter, 1979, 63.5%, 11.0%, 25.5%. Reagan, 1983, 58.2%, 13.8%, 28.2%. Bush I, 1991, 55.5%, 7.7%, 36.5%. Clinton, 1995, 48.7%, 9.0%, 42.3%. Bush II, 2003, 40.0%, 11.3%, 39.1%. Obama, 2011, 50.1%, 7.3%, 42.6%. Trump, 2018, 40.0%, 15.5%, 44.5%. I will leave up any analysis and conclusions to the reader. There are many factors at play, but trends should be apparent. I can hear my Dad cursing at the results.

Erwin Curry

Missoula, Montana

 

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