“It’s a really smart place for China to put in investment and to partner with Montana to have a really good packing industry and processing plant here.”
(Fred Wacker, rancher)
You know the phrase often used during Obama’s tenure in the Oval—changing America by changing the people. Well, that’s what is happening because greedy global corporations, especially food processing like BIG MEAT, BIG CHICKEN and BIG YOGURT, say they can’t find enough Americans to work low wage jobs so they need compliant immigrant laborers.
To hell with what flooding unsuspecting towns with third world workers does to rural America!
Most egregious are the cases where the company (changing your town by changing the people) is foreign-owned.
We know this because we have been writing about the subject for ten years. In the early days the refugee resettlement contractors hid their relationship with global companies, but recently we reported on one—Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service—signing a contract with Brazilian-owned JBS Swift in Greeley to help them “train” refugees as good employees for the meat giant. They signed another pact with Tyson Foods.
Now comes news that President Donald Trump made a deal with China to purchase Montana beef!
And, here is the catch: (To save money!) Montana needs a big new Chinese-owned meatpacking plant! What could go wrong?
From the Daily Mail:
US Senator Steve Daines and ranchers from the northwestern state of Montana on Wednesday applauded a 300-million-US dollar beef deal between Chinese commerce giant JD.com and the Montana Stockgrowers Association (MSGA).
“This landmark agreement has the potential to substantially increase Montana opportunity and agricultural exports to the fastest growing overseas market for beef,” Daines said in a statement.
JD signed the agreement with Errol Rice, executive vice president of MSGA, on Wednesday in Beijing as U.S. President Donald Trump began his three-day state visit to China.
[….]
JD also intends to invest up to another 100 million dollars to build a brand-new slaughter house and feedlot infrastructure in Montana to help set up its supply chain there, with construction beginning as early as the spring of 2018.
Win-win deal! Not!
The agreement follows an agricultural roundtable meeting in early September between a Chinese delegation and Montana farmers and ranchers, hosted by Daines at the Morgan Ranch House, near downtown Bozeman, Montana.
Fred Wacker, owner of Cross Four Ranch in Miles City, Montana, said at the meeting that it would cost him about 80 dollars a head to send cattle to feedlots and processing plants in the Midwest, so as to ship beef products to China and other overseas markets. He would like to seek partnership with Chinese companies to build a world-class processing plant in Montana.
“It’s a really smart place for China to put in investment and to partner with Montana to have a really good packing industry and processing plant here,” Wacker said, arguing that would help bring down logistic costs and guarantee stable supply of high quality beef to China, a win-win deal for both sides. [Losers are the citizens of Montana!—ed]
I suppose there is one bright side–unlike Chobani Yogurt in nearby Idaho, I doubt the Chinese owners will approve of Muslim workers in light of their clear historical animosity to the ‘religion of peace.’ I can just see the mess when the Chinese company gets hit with some discrimination lawsuits when they say “NO” to Somali workers.
Heck, maybe they will insist on bringing in Chinese workers!
For my mushrooming Montana archive, click here.
My Meatpackers archive is here.
In the summer of 2016 I traveled around the country to visit mostly meatpacking towns and haven’t eaten store-bought meat since. I raised beef cattle on a small scale for 20 years, but when I saw those mile-after-mile feedlots, cattle standing in the hot Colorado sun (and the migrant labor disrupted towns), I lost all interest in supermarket beef.
Montanans you don’t want massive feedlots in your lovely state!
Readers should know that the US State Department opened a controversial refugee resettlement office in Montana two years ago. Paving the way for the arrival of cheap refugee labor?
More on Montana wannabe meatpackers next! Here it is!