The farm crisis and the cattle sector

Moving to the right, the graph shows prices in the latter 1950s and 1960s consistently in the range of $150 to $200. [...] Consequently, the highs for the 14-year period between 1989 and 2003 were about equal to the lows in the pre-’89 range; i.e., the best prices after 1989 were not much higher than the worst prices before. [...] A note about reading this document: Though the themes touched on in the Executive Summary are developed in the Main Report, the Main Report does not duplicate all the points of the Summary. [...] At about the same time—as part of the integration, Americanization, and corporatization of the Canadian cattle and beef systems—levels of captive supply in Canadian feedlots rose. [...] Everything changed in the period around 1989: the location of the packing plants, the owners of those plants, the distribution of cattle in Canada, the connection between packers and feedlot cattle, the ownership of cattle auction yards, the focus of Canadian marketing efforts, and our trade and regulatory frameworks.