Beef Prices May Be High, But So Are Inputs

While cattle market prices are high and prices at the grocery store for beef are high, National Farmers Union Vice President Jeff Kippley says input costs also remain high for producers.

“Beef is getting high in the stores now- if you look at a percentage of wages, it's not compared to the 1970s; we're right on track to what we used to pay for a pound of burger compared to what the average wage is, but it is high. I like to remind people like you do with the inputs being higher, and also that beef really struggled from about 2014 I should say, to take that back. Say about 2014 15, all the way till about 21/22, those prices were below the cost of production.”

Kippley says the financial strain runs deep, with many ranchers taking on long term debt against the land they already owned to keep operations afloat.

“We're seeing a lot of guys get healthy right now, but you know, it's always one scare away this worry of a strike happening in a beef plant, and all of a sudden we see the limit down prices for a day or two. And those are, again, just scary situations for a rancher, because most ranchers have one payday a year if you haven't sold yet, and market goes down 20 bucks between now and then. That's a bad feeling. So that's always a concern of mine, just the black swan events that seem to always happen in the cat and cattle industry.”

The National Farmers' Union's Jeff Kippley.