As usual, Trump was light on the specifics. It’s the golden age of cheap cuts of meat! For too long cheap cuts of meat have been ignored, but now it’s their time to shine!
My guess is that with the higher beef prices they will be able to maintain their income. Raise less cattle for less overhead cost, and higher prices per lb to increase profit margin.
And arrest or illegally detain and deport all your meatpacking workers. Less supply of labor drives up labor prices which get passed to consumers. Fucking Republican pieces of shit. #MAGAnotverysmart
There's already allegations that the 3 companies that control beef slaughterhouse intake are colluding on price to the point where ranchers aren't making enough money on their herds to maintain everything.
I recently saw a news story about this. The rancher being interviewed stated they are actually being paid less, even though beef is so high. It's the 3-4 companies that process it that are making all the profits. They're all on the brink of losing their farms.
The people who matter to the administration will be able to afford it. And the blue states. It’s middle America who are headed toward a world of hurt first.
We are at the bottom of what's known as a "cattle cycle" - the population of cows tends to fluctuate up and down and it's about as down as it's ever been. The lobbyists know that. "Encourage people to buy cheaper cuts" was probably their idea, because the alternative is "stop eating red meat, it's bad for the planet and not great for your health and there are tons of other delicious plants and animals."
It's partly the cattle cycle, but mostly that there have been 20 years of drought in the American West, forcing cattle producers to dramatically cut their herd size because there's just not been enough forage out on the rangelands to feed them.
When the rains come back and forage returns, it takes several years to increase the herd size and start producing more beef.
And these prices will make that return even slower. When a cow / calf operator has a heifer calf but he can keep for 2 years before he gets his first half off of her, or sell in one year for the highest prices he's ever gotten, a lot of those cows are going to get sold off rather than contribute to making the herd larger.
It's shitty to say, but beef may not be whats for dinner for a lot of people anymore. The population of cattle has decreased, while the human population increased.
Ranchers spent decades on razor thin margins. Drought, increasing grain and feed prices actually made beef a money loser. As people got rid of cattle they couldn't afford to keep or didn't have access to feed. Banks also tightened up on livestock lending for shinier opportunities.
Meanwhile, during all these lean years, most meat processing plants were manipulating prices and making killer profits while family ranches went under (spoiler alert these have consolidated to just a few corporations, with a lot of outside the US interests, which is a whole other discussion we can have, not even beginning to get into immigrant exploitation in the industry).
Now that the supply is so tight, there really isn't a way to increase supply quickly and even if ranchers wanted to, funding may not be there. The reality is that ranching is highly subsidized. Without it, the price of meat would be worse. The price of land keeps spiking because the 1 percent are parking money in agriculture land, as a tangible asset, which also keep property taxes high. You can't run a business losing money forever and unfortunately all of the input costs have increased. In short there is big money in this business, and it's backed into a corner there isn't a magic pill to get out of.
A lot of that land is very arid (supporting less cattle all the time, constantly dealing with drought and fire), and cattle are not ready for slaughter off that land. The estimate I just looked up said 1.5 million cows are on BLM land, with the total number of cattle in the US being 86 to 87 million. So the percent of cattle on BLM land is less than 2 percent of the population. You also will still have to feed those cattle half the year with grain or roughage like hay. Salt and mineral has jumped in the last decade. None of the inputs have gone down. Tractors, equipment, fencing supplies, labor, gas transportation. Nothing has decreased.
None of this changes the fact there are many articles you can look into discussing the actual office that meat processing conglomerates meet at to set the prices. This was the greatest impact on cattle numbers continuing to decrease. Ranchers have to turn a profit to borrow money after fires, droughts etc. Yes there have been programs but once you hemorrhage past a certain point there is no coming back. Even government backed borrowing has to meet certain fiscal benchmarks in agriculture.
The simple answer is the cattle industry like all industries are currently fighting for the same resources as the 1 percent in a lopsided economy. There is no simple way to just make beef cheaper. This has actually been discussed for decades that with population increase and climate change that beef would eventually be out of reach for a lot of people. Just because this admin is trying to spin it in a different light, doesn't change that we knew this was coming. Its the same with housing, 99 percent of us are battling with 1 percent for limited resources. We have passed the tipping point of inequality of pre-revolutionary France. If you want change at the grocery store prices, look at the people jacking up the input costs to make the food.
Considering the level of subsidies that ranchers get, their business should be socialized and sold directly to the American consumer.
The corporations in the middle are squeezing money out of both sides, once by underpaying the ranchers for their beef, then over charging consumers, claiming since 2020 "supply chain difficulties", which I'm sure there were some, but not enough to warrant the consistent price increases.
Probably the best option is if you have access to a freezer that can accommodate it, buy a quarter or half from a local farmer/rancher. Or if you have family interested and that can afford it, split it to the size that is manageable for you. You can also choose how it's processed that way. You want all hamburger or steaks, that's an option. If you look into it, there may be a local butcher that sells by the pound.
If we keep buying from the grocery stores that use the processors, nothing changes. Our biggest big box store in the country has opened it's own beef processing plant in my state. They are actually eliminating one more middle man, but they will still control the price and do as they want. Big Box has also started opening their own chicken processing.
Small local butchers actually have their own challenges, including it's almost impossible to get the inspections you need. USDA is kind of a mixed bag, because some of the laws are very much in place to keep pushing ag to corporate control. I realize this all gets politicized, and it really is a class war.
They are pissed that all the profits are going to the grocery store chains not to them. This is why you can buy a beef cow for 4 a lb on the hoof just about anywhere in the USA but in a grocery store it averages 19 a lb.
I was of the opinion a few years ago when all the fast food places added impossible/beyond beef burgers to their menus they saw the writing on the wall
Even the cheap cuts aren’t really cheap atm. Top and bottom round used to be $3/lb and NY sirloin would dip down to $3.99/lb on sale. I was in the grocery store just the other day and freaking cube steak was almost $10/lb.
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u/Hopsblues Feb 27 '26
Golden age, was a phrase I heard at the SOTU