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.