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R-CALF USA, Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America, represents thousands of U.S. cattle producers on domestic and international trade and marketing issues. R-CALF USA, a national, non-profit organization, is dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle industry. R-CALF USA's membership consists primarily of cow-calf operators, cattle backgrounders, and feedlot owners. Its members are located in 46 states, and the organization has many local and state association affiliates, from both cattle and farm organizations. Various main street businesses are associate members of R-CALF USA.
With a very small staff, R-CALF USA is dependent on its 15 directors, several committee chairs and numerous other volunteers. Articles upload to op-ed news are written by various staff or volunteers, and unless recognized in the article, should be attributed to the organization and not an individual.
SHARE Thursday, December 6, 2012 R-CALF USA says KSU COOL Study Conflicts with WTO Findings
"The fact that KSU has issued an implausible study demonstrates just how much manipulative political power COOL opponents -- primarily the multinational meatpackers -- have over our land-grant universities.
SHARE Thursday, December 6, 2012 R-CALF USA Seeks Confirmation Regarding an Apparent Conflict of Interest in Beef Checkoff Program
"If our information is correct and Weldon Wynn serves both to decide who is to receive Beef Checkoff Program funds (in his official capacity as a CBB officer) as well as to benefit directly from his own decisions (by directly representing the interests of Checkoff funds recipient USFRA), then this is further evidence of the ongoing, insidious and systemic corruption within the Beef Checkoff Program.
SHARE Sunday, September 23, 2012 CEO Files FOIA To Determine Role USDA Played In Beef Industry Group
"We hope USDA was not involved in excluding R-CALF USA, but given USDA's refusal to take any remedial action after learning that NCBA (National Cattlemen's Beef Association) had misused hundreds of thousands of producer checkoff dollars, it's not a far stretch to suspect that USDA is complicit in trying to stop us from restoring the credibility of the Beef Checkoff Program," Bullard commented.
SHARE Friday, June 8, 2012 Agriculture Secretary Appoints Larry Mitchell to Succeed Dudley Butler as GIPSA Chief: Congress at Work to Tie Mitchell'
"We are pleased with the Secretary's appointment of Larry Mitchell but the leadership of the House subcommittee on agriculture appropriations is carrying the water for multinational meatpackers that do not want Larry Mitchell or anyone else to prevent them from vertically integrating the cattle industry and stripping producers of their economic independence," said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard.
SHARE Wednesday, May 23, 2012 R-CALF USA Frustrated Over Lack of Response; Submits Second Request for Extension of BSE Public Comment Period
On May 15, the day the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) Proposed Rule comment period closed, R-CALF USA sent a letter to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) requesting an extension. This is the second extension request made by the group. The first request, made by approximately 30 organizations in an April 24, 2012 letter, has not yet been answered.
SHARE Sunday, May 13, 2012 R-CALF USA Calls USDA Proposal to Reform Beef Checkoff Program Far too Little and Far too Late
"In fact, USDA's overly simplistic proposal is a hollow and disingenuous gesture in light of the horrendous mismanagement and misappropriation of producer contributions that NCBA (National Cattlemen's Beef Association) is known to have committed and for which USDA remains ominously passive and silent," the group stated.
SHARE Friday, May 4, 2012 FormerGIPSA Chief to Address Independent Cattle Producers in Dakotas
In only his second and third appearances since stepping down from his federal post in January as Administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), J. Dudley Butler will be in the Dakotas this month to inform cattle producers about the future competitiveness of the U.S. cattle industry.
(1 comments) SHARE Wednesday, March 30, 2011 Group to Congress, Administration: Begin Enforcement of Antitrust Laws, Finalize GIPSA Rule, Take Immediate Steps to El
In meetings held earlier this month, R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard and R-CALF USA member Judy McCullough, a Wyoming cow/calf rancher and past president of the Independent Cattlemen of Wyoming, urged the U.S. Department of Justice (Justice), the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) GIPSA, the U.S. Senate agriculture committee, and members of Congress to immediately begin enforcement of antitrust laws, finalize the GIPSA co
SHARE Tuesday, February 22, 2011 CEO Testifies in Support of Wall Street Reform Act That Would Bring Transparency to Cattle Markets
"We think the most important thing is to bring transparency to the opaque markets like swaps or over-the-counter trades and we think the priority for the CFTC should be to implement those as quickly as possible, because it's one thing for an industry to change because of competitive forces...
SHARE Friday, February 11, 2011 Evidence Suggests Corruption Runs Deep in Beef Checkoff Program
R-CALF USA is again calling for a thorough and probing investigation, going back at least 10 years, into NCBA's long history of Checkoff violations. R-CALF USA has furnished investigators with documents that list dates and locations of NCBA's policy activities that should not have been subsidized with Checkoff funds.
SHARE Thursday, December 9, 2010 NCBA, NPPC Help Packers Capture U.S. Cattle Supply Chain
Using copies of numerous NCBA charts within its comprehensive comments, R-CALF USA charges that NCBA et al are masking the true condition of the cattle industry by disseminating only partial and ambiguous industry data and omitting relevant data. R-CALF USA states that NCBA et al's actions "have effectively misled many cattle producers by deflecting their attention away from the serious crisis presently facing...
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 2, 2010 As Mad Cow Disease Scientist Prusiner Awarded Nat'l. Medal of Science, Group Urges USDA to Withdraw OTM Rule
In a letter sent today to President Barack Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, R-CALF USA commended the presidential selection of Stanley B. Prusiner as a recipient of the government's highest honor for scientists - the National Medal of Science... "We urge you to reassess completely your Administration's position regarding USDA's open OTM rule that is undeniably underpinned by the maligned actions of USDA..."
SHARE Sunday, November 21, 2010 Congress Hears from Real Producers Why GIPSA Rule Needed
"Rather than bring professional lobbyists to Washington to persuade Congress to support the ongoing corporatization of our nation's livestock supply chains, our Competition Coalition brought actual livestock producers to D.C. to provide firsthand accounts of how their profitability has been improperly squeezed by monopolistic packers and how the GIPSA rule would restrict meatpackers from exercising their monopolistic power,"
SHARE Tuesday, November 9, 2010 Broken Markets, Broke Cattlemen, Bad Statistics, Worse Economics
"It's interesting that Speer cites about 10 economists who have, themselves, cautioned the industry against tying contract prices to the cash market," Bullard concluded. "As Dr. Taylor points out, based on relative returns, a common-sense "country doctor of economy' would declare the meatpackers and food retailers to be "healthy, bordering on obesity,' but cattlemen as "sickly' and in need of major corrective treatment."
(1 comments) SHARE Sunday, November 7, 2010 Meatpacker Apologists Engage in Deceptive Smear Campaign Against USDA Official
"Meatpackers' apologists, some of whom claim to be journalists, are openly engaged in an unethical smear campaign targeted at Dudley Butler, Administrator of USDA's (U.S. Department of Agriculture's) Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), who heads the agency charged with overseeing the livestock procurement practices of meatpackers by enforcing the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act,"
SHARE Tuesday, November 2, 2010 Americans to be Pummeled by Yet Another "Sky-Is-Falling" Pro-Meatpacker Study
"We're not expecting anything even close to the truth when these pro-meatpacker groups unveil their self-serving study, and based on the history of the consulting firm they've used and the hype they're trying to generate, we'd better be prepared for a spectacular deception,"
SHARE Saturday, October 23, 2010 AMI Study Attacks GIPSA Rule, Exemplifies Abusive Monopolistic Power of the Concentrated Packing Industry
"The entire study is based on the outrageous threat that packers likely will collude to destroy certain marketing arrangements that benefit everyone in the marketing chain from consumers to retailers to packers to cattle producers by providing high quality beef for consumers," said R-CALF USA President/Region VI Director Max Thornsberry.