I just about choked on my Wheaties when I read an article recently with the headline “Evidence lacking for action against imported lamb.”
For crying out loud, how much more evidence is needed! The American Sheep Industry (ASI) hires a D.C. lobbying firm for millions of dollars, and theycan’t see the current trend that’s putting western range sheep ranchers out of business?
Two months ago, I put on a press conference in the Boise Foothills featuring longtime Idaho sheep ranchers Henry Etcheverry and Frank Shirts, who are fed up with the huge imports of Australian and New Zealand lamb being dumped into the U.S. market and the resulting price-crushing that occurs to large sheep ranchers across the West as a result. Those foreign imports now exceed 74% of the American market.
The trend line for the last 50 years is that foreign imports go up, western sheep operations go out of business.
Our headline was: “Idaho Range Sheep operations in danger of extinction from low prices, heavy foreign imports and meat packer monopolies.”
Etcheverry and Shirts know exactly what’s going on—they’re living it every day. It’s incredibly frustrating to them that they can’t get any help from ASI, the Biden administration or Congress on this issue.
Our timing was good. Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF) issued a national press release at the same time in August and sent a petition to U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, requesting relief from “injurious” lamb and mutton imports from Australia and New Zealand. Biden administration officials have publicly stated that they want to go after big multinational monopolies. They could start with the meatpacking industry, the Big Four in the U.S.: JBS, Tyson, Cargill and Marfrig.
Whenever there’s a shortage of lamb worldwide, and sheep ranchers like Shirts and Etcheverry stand to make a decent profit, JBS Australia will ratchet up exports into the U.S. market and bring the price back down, crushing the little guys who work 24/7 to raise quality lambs on the western range.
“The Australians are dumping product in the U.S., and no one is doing anything about it,” Shirts said. “It just makes me sick. I’m not sure how long we can take this before we give up. And if we are forced to quit business, we’ll be gone forever.”
“I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Etcheverry said. “We love the sheep. We love raising the sheep. It’s in my heart. It’s in my blood. But right now, it seems like we’re circling the drain. We have got to do something to fix this situation.”
The meatpacker monopolies have been hammering Western range sheep operations on price for decades. I remember having lunch with the esteemed State Senator Laird Noh, a Kimberly sheep rancher, in the 1990s. A gentle-natured man normally, Noh had smoke coming out of his ears talking about the foreign lamb imports and meatpacker monopolies. He had been a professor of economics at the University of Chicago, so this guy was no hick.
“Since the time the U.S. entered its first major free trade agreement—the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement—lamb and mutton imports have increased over 543 percent in quantity and 2,363 percent in value,” the R-CALF petition cover letter says. “These imports have displaced domestic lamb and mutton production, which has declined 60% during this period.”
Shirts and Etcheverry are lucky to get $1.90-$2.10/ pound just to break even at the wholesale level.
Right now, America’s hobby sheep and farm operations can’t grow lamb fast enough to satisfy consumer demand. There aren’t enough butcher shops to handle the demand. What we need are some business investors to combine with the western sheep industry to create a meatpacking co-op in Idaho, Wyoming or Colorado, so the ranchers could get a fair shake pricewise and provide a wide range of locally grown range-fed product for local consumers.
We stand to lose our range sheep operations forever, as Shirts and Etcheverry point out, if Congress and President Joe Biden do nothing on this issue. It would certainly help if ASI could stand up for what is right—and the American sheep industry could unite – to work together to prevent the western range sheep industry from going extinct. — Steve Stuebner
(Steve Stuebner has been covering natural resources and conservation issues in Idaho for more than 35 years.)
