Veteran Farmer Award of Excellence and Beef Prices Down for Producers
From the Western Ag Network, I’m Bob Larson with your Agribusiness Update.
**A North Carolina veteran who turned beekeeping into a successful business is being recognized for supporting fellow veterans and strengthening rural communities.
The American Farm Bureau, with support from Farm Credit, presented Jim Hartman with its Veteran Farmer Award of Excellence.
After 10 years in the Army, Hartman’s Secret Garden Bees, founded in 2020, sells honey products in 27 states and employs three full-time workers, including two disabled veterans in apprenticeship programs.
**USDA plans to provide more than $57 million dollars to expand meat and poultry processing capacity, potentially giving livestock producers more options for marketing their animals.
Vice President J.D. Vance and Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the funding through USDA’s Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program.
USDA has identified 147 tentative awards across 40 states.
The grants go to independent processors to increase capacity, encourage competition, and strengthen the domestic supply chain.
**Consumers paid 7% more for beef while cattle producers received 10% less, according to American Farm Bureau Federation analysis, highlighting a larger challenge for agriculture.
Farmers are price-takers, meaning they must accept market prices while absorbing higher production costs.
USDA data shows farmers received just 5.8 cents of every dollar spent on food they produced in 2024.
The remaining 94.2 cents covered processing, transportation, retail, and other costs.
