NCBA Ready for 2025

Well as 2024 begins to wind down, agricultural organizations are certainly getting their policy roadmap in place for 2025, especially with Republicans in control of Congress. And President elect Trump headed back to the white House This week in Casper at the Wyoming Stock Growers Association and Wyoming Wool Growers Association Winter Roundup, the NCBA's Ethan Lane explained what they're most excited about regarding all the changes headed for Washington, D.C.

"Well, it's always an opportunity in a new administration, a new Congress, to kind of reexamine the direction these agencies are going," said Lane. "You know, obviously, you see a freeze on ongoing regulatory activity that's not going to break any hearts. And cattle country after the last couple years of the Biden administration. So this is a good chance to kind of look at some of the misguided policy we've seen out of the Biden term, you know, reexamine, whether it's things that are even needed or if it's kind of, you know, adventurism on behalf of the Biden team. We know that the Trump team is going to come in and I think, hopefully address some of those more recent ones and start the processes on those rules that were finalized further back, whether we're talking about the BLM conservation rule, whether we're talking about some of the Packers and Stockyards rules that have been so onerous to a lot of producers around the country. You know, there's going to be a lot of scrutiny on all of that and in other parts of the economy as well. And that's going to keep everybody pretty busy for the first few months."

He also explained some of the challenges they're preparing for, most notably Trump's threat of tariffs on imports and what it could mean for U.S. beef exports if trading partners retaliate.

"It's definitely something I think that's caught producers attention," said Lane. "We know our president elect Trump has has said this is the route he wants to go down. And it's going to be our job to educate and to help him understand what the risk is there for a really important part of our of our profitability footprint. You know, we've been talking about producer profitability, the whole reason all of these trade associations exist for the last hundred and 60 years or so is producer profitability and $400 on every fed carcass. An export value is a big part of that. So helping the president to understand how to achieve his goals and not disrupt ours, I think is going to be part of that dialog. And that's, you know, that's all part of a new administration like this is looking for those challenges, talking through and working together and figuring out a solution."

He also encourages cattle producers to make plans to attend the 2025 Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show, headed for San Antonio, Texas, in February to help shape the CBA's policy roadmap for the future. For more information, you can visit www.ncba.org.

Source: Ag Information Network & Western Ag Network