In this rolling corner of Wisconsin, Jimmy Kirschbaum is known for his cattle auction and his legendary menagerie of pets.
A notorious prankster, he used to stick baby alligators or a pet skunk inside an empty beer case and invite unsuspecting victims to grab a few fresh beers. And then there was the pet bear, a rodeo castoff named Old Boo, that Kirschbaum bought after “getting in the whiskey a little bit.”
For years, Kirschbaum and Old Boo would venture to taverns in Kirschbaum’s truck and challenge the locals to a wrestling match.
“He was a damn headache,” said Kirschbaum, a back-slapping 67-year-old in a broad cowboy hat who now only keeps a few horses. “That was in the day you could get by with stuff, before there were all these laws.”
Some would argue that Kirschbaum’s cattle auction also is outdated and inevitably will suffer the same fate as his exotic pet collection.
While cattle auctions are still scattered across the country, their business has suffered because of seismic changes in agriculture. Following the path of the chicken and pig industries, the cattle business has rapidly consolidated into the hands of four major meatpacking companies that are increasingly buying their cattle through contracts with farmers, rather than at cattle auctions, to ensure a regular and consistent supply.
“I can remember we’d have 15 packers in my little old sale barn. Now [there are] maybe seven or eight,” said Kirschbaum, who runs the auction with his two sons.
But nostalgia isn’t the reason that Kirschbaum and many farmers are hoping that cattle auctions survive. Rather, they argue that auctions provide farmers with the best chance of being paid a competitive price for their cattle, an opinion supported by a federal jury in Alabama last month.
Ruling that the nation’s largest beef packer, Tyson Fresh Meats Inc., had unfairly manipulated prices, a federal jury awarded $1.28 billion to a group of cattle ranchers. The plaintiffs alleged that Tyson bought cattle at auction only when prices were low and relied on its supply from fixed-price contracts when prices were high, meaning independent ranchers were stuck with low prices either way.
Tyson plans to appeal the verdict.
The changes in the cattle industry were evident at several recent auctions in southwest Wisconsin. At the Equity Livestock Auction in Richland Center, a handful of buyers from local slaughterhouses sat together in the bleachers and only occasionally bid against one another. By the end of the day, only two or three bidders remained.
“It’s called packer concentration,” said Jeff Goldwasser, a cattle farmer from Boscobel, Wis. “A guy once told me that he got out of cattle when two guys showed up to bid on his cattle and they were in the same car.”
The bidding was slightly more robust the next day at Kirschbaum’s Bloomington Livestock Exchange. Sitting in the crowd was Charlie Boyd, a livestock broker whose talent for spotting a good steak from 25 yards away has earned him a comfortable living.
Boyd, of Mason City, Iowa, travels to cattle auctions around the Midwest to buy cattle and then resells the animals to meatpacking plants. He makes money when the cattle he buys are graded as premium, a high-risk proposition because even the most handsome steers occasionally produce mediocre beef.
“It’s something that you have an eye for or you don’t,” said Boyd, occasionally lifting a finger to bid. “There’s a big, big risk there.”
Boyd has survived the perils of his job, but he fears he may not survive the changes in the industry. Unless something changes, he predicted, live cattle auctions will fizzle out in the next five years or so.
Speaking of the verdict in Alabama, Boyd said, “The decision is excellent, but it’s 10, 12 years too late.”
