Rebuilding the U.S. Herds
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. The Trump administration has announced a new plan aimed at lowering beef prices for consumers, but the plan will negatively impact the farm economy.
John Newton, American Farm Bureau vice president of economic analysis, says the plan calls for importing a large volume of foreign beef …
NEWTON … “Over the next 90 days, he plans to allow imports of up to 300,000 metric tons of beef into the U.S. market, with the goal of trying to lower ground beef prices in advance of the midterm. Three hundred thousand metric tons of beef is equivalent to over 600 million pounds of beef.”
Newton says importing this much volume will negatively impact U.S. cattle ranchers …
NEWTON … “We've already seen cattle prices fall about 15 percent over the last two months. Prices were down on this news. It can't come at a worse time for ranchers as the herd is at a 50-year low, and they're trying to rebuild the herd. And this takes away any economic incentives to invest and rebuild the herd when we're trying to lower cattle and beef prices."
Newton says the market was already providing incentives to rebuild herds, but not overnight …
NEWTON … “We start to see farmers start to retain heifers so that we can begin to rebuild the herd. The cattle cycle is a 10-year cycle. It takes years and years and years to rebuild the herd, but we need to make sure that any plans to import beef don't undermine the ranchers and the farmers that are going to rebuild our herd.”
Go to www.fb.org for updates.
