Beef Prices Where They Should Be

Although it's been said many times that beef prices are at all time high, although it's been said many times that beef prices are at all time highs, and they are. Ed Elfmann with the American Bankers Association. He's the senior vice president of agricultural and banking policy, says that the prices are actually right where they should be.

"If they have beef, poultry, dairy, they're probably feeling a little better right now, and beef sat doing really, really well, although it's at the price of inflation. So it's not everybody talks about beef prices being so high; in reality, it's actually tracking where it should be, which makes row crops look even worse overall. So from a banker standpoint, we're really worried about profitability, what it's going to look like over the next year, two years during this down cycle- 25 was an interesting year. We got ECAP payment showed up early in the year, which helped a lot of producers better cash flow, or at least be closer to break-even.

And as we head into 2026, 

"You're going to have reference price increases through some farm bill. Things that happened in the tax bill this last summer. Those payments will all come in October of next year. But is October going to be too late for some folks? And that's the biggest thing we've been really talking about is, what is this timing? What does cash flow look like, and how do we get from here to there and make sure that our producers are still successful."

Ed Elfmann with the American Bankers Association.