A documentary by More Perfect Union, How Big Beef Is Killing America’s Farmers, features R-CALF USA member Coy Young has been released.
Young, a fourth-generation cattle rancher from Missouri, captured America’s attention first by sharing the backstory of his own near suicide – depressed cattle prices that rendered his ranching operation economically untenable – in Peter Goodman’s 2021 New York Times article, “Record Beef Prices, but Ranchers Aren’t Cashing In.” Soon after, then Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Representative David Scott, D-Ga., invited Young to testify before his committee’s hearing in 2022 entitled, “An Examination of Price Discrepancies, Transparency, and Alleged Unfair Practices in Cattle Markets.”
Following his widely publicized congressional testimony, Young conceived an idea to provide support to the untold numbers of ranchers who, like himself, were experiencing a financial crisis due to the dysfunctional cattle market. Together, R-CALF USA and Young launched the “No Rancher Left Behind” campaign, a rancher/farmer conversation and awareness campaign.
Since May of 2022, the collaborative R-CALF USA and Young “No Rancher Left Behind” campaign has sponsored a nationwide, weekly virtual support group, providing a forum for similarly situated cattle farmers and ranchers to talk with one another. The group meets each Wednesday at 7 p.m. MST.
According to R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard, today’s documentary captures Young’s story, “which exemplifies the ongoing crisis in the U.S. cattle industry that is harming America’s cattle producers on one end of the beef supply chain and consumers on the other.”
