R-CALF USA Welcomes Consumers

Welcome and thank you for visiting this unprecedented webpage that is maintained by cattle producers exclusively for consumers. You may be asking, “Why would a website devoted to ‘Fighting for the U.S. Cattle Producer’ have a webpage dedicated exclusively to consumers?”

Well, with hat in hand, we must acknowledge that for decades cattle producers took consumers for granted – they knew they raised the cattle that produced the beef that consumers needed in their daily diets, and so long as consumers continued purchasing beef at their grocery stores, all was well. In turn, consumers knew that the beef in their grocery store was produced by cattle producers – and so as long as there were ample supplies of beef in the grocery store, all was well.

Neither cattle producers nor beef consumers could have been more wrong.

Today, due to inappropriate government policies that have led to unprecedented consolidation, concentration, and outsourcing of domestic cattle production, the few remaining cattle producers who are left in the U.S. are struggling to stay in business. At the same time, consumers are now paying beef prices that are disconnected from cattle prices, food-borne illnesses from contaminated beef have increased dramatically, and tainted beef products are being imported from foreign countries with inadequate health and safety standards.

Our nation’s exemplary system of cattle production, which once provided consumers with the safest, most reliable, and most affordable beef supply produced under the best of conditions, is now seriously broken.

We are in this together and must now work together to aggressively reform government policies that are driving a wedge between cattle production and beef consumption. Together, we must restore the deep-rooted system that once connected consumers to cattle producers – the system that assured consumers the safest and most reliable food source by ensuring that cattle production remained in the hands of family farmers and ranchers who care deeply for the health and welfare of their cattle and who are the nation’s best stewards of our air, land, and water.

The sustainability of your food supply is intrinsically linked to the sustainability of our U.S. cattle industry. Only by joining together can we sustain each other. We, the U.S. cattle industry, need you, the U.S. consumer, to help restore the security of our U.S. food system.

We welcome you to our cattle industry website and we cordially invite you to join with us in our fight to guarantee, for our children and yours, the safest, healthiest, and most reliable and affordable source of beef anywhere in the world.

Please join R-CALF USA today so you can support this important effort.

Please contact us with your thoughts and suggestions.