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Journal Article
The new U.S. meat industry
A new meat industry is rapidly emerging in the United States, as food retailers, meat processors, and farms and ranches coalesce into fewer and larger businesses. The industry?s rapid consolidation in recent years has triggered alarms that the industry?s new giants in retailing and processing could drive up food prices for consumers and drive down livestock prices for producers. How should public policy respond to the industry?s consolidation? And how can all participants in the industry?producers, processors, retailers, and consumers?benefit from its new structure?> Barkema, Drabenstott, and Novack examine the striking changes in the meat industry. First, they describe how the industry is changing. Then they examine the forces driving the industry?s consolidation. Finally, they consider how consumers and industry participants are affected. While current evidence is scant that market power has hurt either consumers or producers, the industry?s rapid consolidation nevertheless warrants vigilance. At the same time, public policy might also play a role in ensuring that all participants in the market benefit from its new structure.
AUTHORS: Drabenstott, Mark; Barkema, Alan; Novack, Nancy
DATE: 2001-04
Journal Article
This little piggy went to market : will the new pork industry call the Heartland home?
Throughout the 1990s, the pork industry has been at the forefront of a revolution in the structure of the U.S. food and agricultural sector. In particular, the pork industry has been rapidly moving away from its traditional structure built on hundreds of thousands of small farms selling hogs at local terminal markets to a much more concentrated "supply chain" model. Contracting is one prominent feature of supply chains, and the share of pork production grown under contract or vertical integration has jumped from a few percent in the early 1980s to around a third today. Most analysts agree that the structure of the U.S. pork industry will soon resemble that of the U.S. poultry industry, which moved to a supply chain structure more than three decades ago. In short, the hog industry, once a quintessential "family farm" enterprise, has gone to market---a very big market.> As the pork industry's structure has changed, so has its geography. Raising hogs was once heavily concentrated in the Corn Belt, since corn is the primary feed for hogs. The shift to supply chains, however, has taken the pork industry to many new places. North Carolina and Virginia became major pork states in the 1980s. More recently, the industry has moved aggressively into states in the Great Plains that used to be cattle country, Oklahoma being a good case in point. Pork production there has leaped nearly 900 percent since 1990. Where the pork industry locates in the future carries big economic implications.> Drabenstott examines the changes taking place in the U.S. pork industry. He concludes that the recent geographic shift in the industry could foreshadow still more shifts in the future, possibly including moves to Canada, Mexico, or South America.
AUTHORS: Drabenstott, Mark
DATE: 1998-07
Journal Article
From the Plains to the plate : can the beef industry regain market share?
Over the past several decades, the beef industry has seen a sharp drop in its share of the retail meat market. While per capita meat consumption has grown, per capita beef consumption has plunged. Explaining the drop in beef's market share has become a favorite pastime of industry analysts. In fact, a family feud of sorts has broken out in the industry between those who think the decline largely reflects increases in beef's price relative to competing meats and those who stress nonprice factors such as lifestyle changes, health concerns, and so forth as causes of decline. Regardless of the cause, however, the solution to the problem is likely the same.> Whatever the cause of beef's declining market share, the pork and poultry industries have clearly benefited. Poultry, in particular, has seen its market share soar in recent years as per capita consumption boomed. Most analysts attribute the success of the poultry and pork industries to their ability to achieve a high degree of vertical coordination between different links in the production chain. In particular, vertical coordination has allowed them to become consumer-product driven industries while achieving significant cost reductions that have lowered retail prices.> Lamb and Beshear suggest that for the beef industry to recapture its lost market share it must become a consumer-driven industry. A critical step in the process is achieving a greater degree of vertical coordination across the production chain. Vertical coordination in beef production may take many different forms. In fact, three alternative forms of vertical coordination in the beef industry seem possible, from modest changes in how beef is priced, to marketing cooperatives and producer alliances, to the most radical change full vertical integration of beef production. Which path of change the industry will follow is unclear, but marketing cooperatives appear to offer the best chance for the industry to recapture market share.
AUTHORS: Lamb, Russell L.; Beshear, Michelle
DATE: 1998-10
Journal Article
The changing U.S. pork industry: a dilemma for public policy
AUTHORS: Barkema, Alan; Cook, Michael L.
DATE: 1993-04
Journal Article
The new U.S. meat industry
AUTHORS: Novack, Nancy; Barkema, Alan
DATE: 2001-04
Journal Article
FAQs about mad cow disease and its impacts
AUTHORS: Henderson, Jason
DATE: 2003-12
Newsletter
Hogs and pigs
AUTHORS: Singer, Mike A.
DATE: 1993-01
Newsletter
Cattle numbers post modest gain
AUTHORS: Singer, Mike A.
DATE: 1993-03
Newsletter
Hogs numbers declining
AUTHORS: Singer, Mike A.
DATE: 1993-10
Newsletter
Pork production falling short of expectations
AUTHORS: Benjamin, Gary L.
DATE: 1993-07