Reversing earlier losses triggered by a report suggesting the United Arab Emirates is considering leaving the Organization of the Petroleum U.S. imports of Brazilian beef surged last year, but after confirmation of mad cow disease in that country, many are calling for a halt to the During an increasingly difficult time for young farmers to buy farmland, Kellogg Company and Michigan-based retailer Meijer have partnered with LINCOLN, Neb. According to the Land Report, Gates is the top farmland owner in the United States. There were only two corporations operating near enough his ranch to buy his herds. Northwest rancher Cody Easterday recently turned himself in to a minimum security prison camp at Lompoc just south of Santa Maria, California. They spend a lot of time sending inspectors out to check on whether or not the cattle they have loaned money on really exist.. In 2006, Tyson shuttered its packing plant in Boise, Idaho, leaving only one Tyson packing plant in the Pacific Northwest located in Pasco, Washington. There are no paper titles tracking cattle. It worked. Shawn and Kristy Freeland with some of their cattle, Corn with fuel pump handle representing ethanol fuel. LINCOLN, Neb. In charging papers, Easterday was also accused, not only of bilking Tyson out of $233,008,042, but of replicating the scam with an unnamed company and defrauding that one of another $11,023,084. This increased price was consistent among the four largest chicken processorsTyson, Pilgrim's Pride, Sanderson and Perduewhich prompted a series of . To meet margin calls, Easterday devised a scheme to defraud one of his biggest business partners, a South Dakota-based beef producer, federal officials say. As part of his defense, Easterday also admitted to having a gambling habit in court documents where he lost millions of dollars on the beef futures market. Court records show credit card bills in Debby Easterday's name were paid $153,405.19. Row crops, plus cherries and grapes. Nothing illegal. According to the Washington State Patrol, 79-year-old Gale A. Easterday crashed his pickup truck head-on with a semi-truck and trailer around 3:30 p.m. Reports noted that he had been spearheading Easterday Farms for . All rights reserved. This is how a guy in Greenwich, Connecticut, can come to be placing bets on tens of thousands of pounds of cattle without ever setting foot in a feedlot. In connection with his commodity futures trading, Easterday also defrauded the CME Group Inc. (CME), which operates the worlds largest financial derivatives exchange. Oil Futures Gain despite Signs US Labor Market Overheating, WTI Gains as US Oil Exports Surge to Record-High 5.6M Bpd, Oil Futures Advance as Traders Monitor Supply Disruptions, High-Octane Fuels Legislation Still Alive in 118th Congress; Passage Still in Question, RFA's Cooper Says 2022 Banner Year for Federal Ethanol Policy, EIA: Ethanol Blending Demand Rebounds, Production Drops, USDA: $63 million Invested in High-Speed Internet in Four States, Farmers Learned Perspective and Built Networks at Beginning Farmer Summit, Three Young U.S. The filing was made after a meatpacker sued Easterday Ranches for defrauding it of $225 million for . They are quick to note that this is fraud, that it was illegal, that it is very far afield of the normal business dealings of a ranch. Lompoc federal penitentiary has a federal prison camp next to it, where Easterday is housed. Debate over the lower Snake River dams' removal has gone on for decades. Afterward, along with heartbreak, there was bewilderment and disbelief. KUOW is the Puget Sound regions #1 radio station for news. Tyson says it's paying for feed for cattle that don't exist, Activists urge scrutiny on 'mega-dairies' amid lawsuit. "On Dec. 7, 2020, Tyson falsely represented to Mr. Easterday that it would not seek criminal charges, and Mr. Easterday agreed to execute an ownership agreement, without counsel present, whereby Mr. Easterday transferred ownership to Tyson of cattle owned by Easterday Ranches that had not been invoiced to Tyson," the lawsuit said. The first episode drops January 10th, wherever you get your podcasts. 8-32 characters, include one number (0-9) and one letter (a-z), By clicking Create Account, you agree to our, Save DTNPF to your home screen: Tap on the arrow and then select, Oil Futures Reverse Higher After US Rig Count Falls, Pressure to Stop Importing Brazilian Beef After Mad Cow Case Confirmed, Kellogg, Meijer Partner to Support Young Midwest Farmers, Increase yields and savings with precision weather. Profits for ranchers have trended slimmer almost every year since the late 1980s, when those prices were first tracked. All were at the back of the line by bankruptcy standards, outranked by creditors like Washington Trust Bank, Rabo AgriFinance and John Deere Financial, which brought their own litigation, anxious to be paid for loans. It's the workers that earn the least that are at risk to be hardest hit: the seasonal, often undocumented, laborers employed by farms, who are paid piecemeal through third parties for tasks far from the looping highways and bridges of the Tri-Cities, out in the land of irrigation pivots and row crops. He faces up to 20 years in prison, and fines. A feedlot (another had been sold). Usual earnings are around $300 a day. Easterday received reimbursement from the companies for the purported purchase and raising cattle the company never actually bought. A multinational monolith, Tyson produced one out of every five pounds of chicken, beef and pork in the United States and made $43.2 billion in sales every year. In June, while the Biden administration was talking of breaking up the corporate meat oligopoly, bidders for Easterday Farms and Ranches were few. But it is risky when contracting with a company like Tyson, because Tyson's market heft can drive the price of cattle down by eliminating cash competition. Peel says cattle are sitting ducks. But what's certainly true is that the price of a steak is increasingly untethered from the cost of raising cattle. As a member of the DTNPF online community you can contribute to discussions, save your settings, get exclusive email alerts and access to special online sections, and read e-newsletters. The next generation of Easterdays who might have otherwise inherited what he lost the grandsons who spent their youth riding shotgun in Gale's pickup now farm farther from the Tri-Cities. Our independent, nonprofit newsroom produces award-winning stories, podcasts and events. Business with the Easterdays had always been good, they said. Unresolved: Release in which this issue/RFE will be addressed. . Then, in January, Tyson filed suit against Easterday Ranches to reclaim the money. The Easterday Ranches portion is still ongoing and includes more . Easterday Farms -- started in 1958 by Cody Easterday's grandparents -- also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection that same week. On several occasions, according to the CFTC complaint, Easterday carried positions in live cattle futures that exceeded CME exchange-set position limits and "materially overstated" cattle inventory, purchases and sales. This article was originally posted on Wednesday, June 23. AgriNorthwest is owned by the Mormon Church and operates farms in Benton and Walla Walla counties in southeast Washington. The corporation soon disclosed as much to shareholders, along with its own overstated financials. He also was ordered to pay the full restitution of $244. Cash crop farm with biogas plant in Saarland for sale. The primary challenge is that 73% of the beef in the U.S. is controlled by four corporations. Easterday carried out one of the largest cattle swindles in U.S. history, from near Pasco, in Washington state. What impact would a recession have on farming? And ranchers need two things: One is an awful lot of cattle, and the other is a stockbroker. When Easterday filed for bankruptcy, it owed $47,000 and $454,000, respectively, to two farm labor contractors who supplied such workers. Both. ", Study examines impact of beer sales in Colorado, Quick Takes: Cover crop program, Iowa Pork leaders, scholarships and more, 2023 meat production expected to decline 1%. The second-highest bidder was an investment company tied to Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Two more cars were struck by flying debris, their occupants mostly unscathed. WHEN THE SALE WAS OVER, bales of straw were tarped by the hundred in a long, tall row outside a former Easterday feedlot. This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them. Only a portion of the company's $43.2 billion in sales is profit. Tyson passed on providing an interview or any comment on Easterdays incarceration. For an FLC, that is a huge hit.". He also was ordered to pay the full restitution of $244. "Thus, as personal guarantor, Mr. Easterday was required to bear the financial risk if Easterday Ranches did not perform," the lawsuit said. Black piggy bank with downward trend line representing recession. Called FLCs for short, the companies Rangeview Ag Labor and Labor Plus Solutions hire the migrant and local laborers who work the fields, most of whom come from the Latinx community. High Country News. The Fraud Section plays a pivotal role in the Justice Departments fight against white collar crime around the country and is the national leader in prosecuting fraud and manipulation in the U.S. commodity markets. Coronavirus slowdowns at meatpackers surely accounted for some of the loss cattle were hard to sell in 2020 while plants sputtered, labor was scarce and the supply chain shifted from restaurants to grocery stores. Parker says the cattle couldve been in another state. Cody Allen Easterday is serving an 11-year prison sentence in Los Angeles on wire fraud, after pleading guilty to conducting a $233 million ghost-cattle scheme that included allegedly raising cattle for Tyson and billing the company for cattle that did not exist. They also say that Easterday may have had a gambling problem. Hear the larger story of the Easterday swindle in the new podcast, Ghost Herd by KUOW and Northwest Public Broadcasting. The criminal case and connected Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Easterday Ranches Inc. and Easterday Farms could lead to the liquidation of an extensive family farm operation in eastern Washington involved in cattle feeding, as well as having 22,500 acres of potatoes, onions, corn and wheat in the Columbia Basin. Despite the array of colorfully packaged this-and-that in the grocery store, the corporations either create or acquire the brands that give consumers a fairly anemic range of choice. Cody Allen Easterday is serving an 11-year prison sentence in Los Angeles on wire fraud, after pleading guilty to conducting a $233 million ghost-cattle scheme that included allegedly raising. A federal regulatory agency is taking civil enforcement action against Pasco, Wash.-based Easterday Ranches and its owner, Cody Easterday, alleging fraud in connection with the sale of more than 200,000 non-existent head of cattle to its sole customer, Tyson Foods. Within a week, he pleaded guilty to the charges, agreed to pay $244,031,132 in restitution and began awaiting sentencing for possible jail time. In addition, Easterday purchased a troubled dairy in Morrow County, Oregon, in 2019, housing more than 28,000 cows. PASCO, WA (December 15, 2020) A Kennewick man died Thursday in a wrong-way collision on the 182 Freeway near North 4th Avenue. So far, Easterday has paid about $66 million in restitution. Ranchers have long complained about lowball prices from these companies. He'll be on probation for three years after that. Theyre easy to move, Parkers says. All were advertised to whatever deep pocket could come along and help Cody Easterday and his lawyers bail water. Easterday Farms Produce Company was . According to the civil complaint, Easterday accumulated more than $200 million in losses over a 10-year period from speculative trading in the cattle futures markets. Still others are hardened criminals. Onion and potato storages, other buildings, too. But while it is indeed an anomaly an expansive hoodwinking far from normal by ranching standards it exposed a problem widespread in the beef business, which is that the price of a steak has increasingly little to do with the cost of fattening a steer. That industry parlance feedlots is shorthand for saying the cattle are raised in pen after pen after pen on dirt squares that look from the sky like enormous bingo cards.