As we've discussed before, there's been a major consolidation of the meat packing industry in the United States.  Here, some California ranchers have formed their own packing entity.

Ranchers Form Co-Op to Address Meat Processing Bottleneck

It's somewhat surprising that this isn't more widely tried.  Consolidation in the packing industry really hurts ranchers and it doesn't help consumers.

We had an entire series on this blog about the Wyoming economy and how it might be reimagined.  One of the industries we touched on was agriculture, which we discussed here.

Lex Anteinternet: Issues In the Wyoming Election. A Series. Issue No. 1 (c). The Economy again. . . Agriculture

What's changed since we wrote that back in 2018 is that coal and oil are in worse shape than they were then and there's been recent rumblings that a careful observer should be listening to in those quarters of the economy.  The legislature actually is, in terms of attempting to find replacement revenue that they feel is gone forever.  

Replacement work is another thing, but as we noted in that thread and we've noted elsewhere in others, we're not doing much to maximize revenue from agriculture (although a recent issue of Wyo magazine, the magazine for UW alumni shows some interesting things that are going on).  Here we have the beef, but there's no large local packers.

It'd be worth exploring developing some.  The state recently loosened up the restrictions on direct sales, which will allow that part of the market to develop.  Direct sale cattle are packed at the same packing facilities that hunters use for big game, if they don't pack their own, but not at the same time of the year. That's a good development.  But a packer somewhere else, say Casper, Glenrock, Riverton or Torrington, would be a good thing for agriculture.  It might take the state to get it rolling, however.  But with some innovative thinking, that could be done.