R-CALF wants Marfrig deal blocked

At the beginning of May, the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (R-CALF) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Attorney General Jeff Sessions urging them to prevent Marfrig Global Foods from acquiring National Beef Packing. The letter, signed by R-CALF’s Bill Bullard, notes that the acquisition would put roughly a third of the U.S. beef packing into the hands of Brazilian-owned companies. “Marfrig is following Brazilian-owned JBS to America to gain additional control over U.S. marketing outlets upon which nearly three-quarters of a million U.S. cattle ranchers rely on to establish a competitive price for those cattle,” the letter read. It called both Marfrig and beef packing giant JBS “cartels” and “bad actors,” noting recent instances of antitrust action taken against the companies and recent issues of corruption. — WLJ