LIVESTOCK producers are, of course, engaged in an absolutely
indispensable industry. Of scarcely less importance is the packing
business. For upon food production and preparation depend all other
industries and activities.
But it is profitable and enlightening to ask, of what use would be
production and preparation without means for delivering the food to the
consumer? The mere asking brings realization of the prime importance
of ample and uninterrupted transportation and distribution of packing
house products to consumers through the retailers of the country.
And this, in turn, brings us to the consideration of the packers’
salesmen in the hundreds of cities and towns throughout America, which
as a whole make up the final market for the producer’s livestock.
With the sale of his meat animals by the commission man at the primary
market, the owner seems to witness the end of the transaction as far as
he is concerned. But does he?
Could the commission man sell and the packer buy the livestock if it
were not for another salesman and another buyer out at the farthest end
of the market system transacting business with each other in the retail
market?
Again the question answers itself. For the packer’s salesman is
literally the salesman of the livestock producer at the final market,
upon which all other markets depend. The advertising and educational
activities conducted by the packer continuously broaden and intensify
the ultimate market for the products which the livestock man produces.
It devolves upon these agencies to keep the meat products moving
towards final consumption, just as the man at the measuring spout of
the old-fashioned threshing machine had to keep the grain out of the
way and prevent congestion.
There are two distinct divisions of the process of turning livestock
into available meat supplies. First, the production, shipment and sale
of livestock. Second, the preparation, transportation and distribution
of meat products to retailers. The two are interrelated and absolutely
dependent one upon the other.
The opportunity for organized producers to take complete possession
of their end of the process by assuming control of the stockyards, is
offered in the passing of that control from the packing industries by
virtue of the recent understanding with the U. S. Government.
[Illustration: The packer’s salesman is literally the farmer’s salesman
in the thousands of “final markets” throughout the land.]