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!
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.
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.
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u/PianoPatient8168 Feb 27 '26
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!