So, two important things have happened recently in the beef industry.
1. Trump is bragging he is going to import a ton of beef from Argentina.
2. Trump is going after the processors who are accused of using bribes and fraud to artificially raise the price of beef while denying any of it to the farmers.
For those who don't know, right now a handful of beef processors control the entire US market. If you want to buy beef, and you aren't buying direct from a farm, you are buying it through these processors. These processors are not good people, and I think some of them have already sold out to China.
It wasn't too long ago that the USDA made sure that the beef industry could not be dominated by a few big players. They made sure that farmers could get a fair price from the local sale barns because every processor had to buy from local sale barns. Then the people distributing the butchered meat had to buy from local processors, and so on, and all of this was done on the open market, meaning anyone could come in and buy and sell.
The net effect of thousands of different markets working together was that farmers got to take home a fair chunk of the final beef price and no one could really price gouge and such.
Anyway, currently, beef producers (such as myself) are seeing higher prices, but nowhere near what you are seeing in the grocery store. It's utterly ridiculous. I am paying about half of what you are for custom beef grown by a local farmer, and I'm paying more than I've ever paid for processing at a local processor.
Now, when it comes to Argentina, my first reaction was "GOOD." Why? Because most of the beef I grow does not end up on an American dinner plate. Europe and Japan are paying top dollar for American beef, as they should. Americans are notorious for buying the cheapest protein they can find. Bringing in tons and tons of beef from Argentina is going to force the price of beef down by a lot, and it won't affect my prices even a little bit.
For the record, BEEF IS THE CHEAPEST PROTEIN OUT THERE TO PRODUCE. Compared to chicken, sheep, goat, and everything else, hands down Beef cattle are way easier to raise and manage than anything else. That's why so many retired farmers raise beef cattle. Even in old age they can manage what needs to be done and still turn a decent profit.
And with innovations like Joel Salatin's that encourage people to stop buying inputs and feed, the price of beef should be *EVEN LOWER* than it is today. For my 20 head of cows, I spend probably around $10,000 in inputs TOTAL. Half of that is hay and the other half is supplements such as minerals and protein. A tiny fraction is vet services. Labor really doesn't make up much either -- I touch the cattle twice a year MAX. As long as I don't buy an ounce of fertilizer or seed, my costs are DIRT CHEAP. I should be able to sell 20 calves each year at $1,000 each and STILL make a healthy profit. A similar story for stockers (they raise calves to weight) and so on. To put this all in perspective, at the end of the day, I am spending about $1 per pound of beef. That's WAY lower than all other forms of protein I can grow.
So I really don't mind seeing the packers get SCREWED and exposed on this whole scam.
Every American who works a real job SHOULD be eating a pound of beef every day. Not just any old beef, but American-grown grass-fed no-vaccine no-antibiotic beef. We simply don't have the supply to do that yet, but we can. We can even beat Argentina because a good chunk of the US is PRIME beef pasture land. Remember, pasture land isn't good enough to grow corn and beans. It's just a step "up" from forest -- land that is otherwise useless.
10 years from now our supply of beef cattle will go back to "normal" levels. We got our butts kicked by the recent droughts and by packers who have been cheating us out of our "good years". Once that is fixed, once Americans realize how good beef is for them and how cheap it really is, we'll be back to feeding our nation again.
BTW -- the guys growing beef in Argentina are all American. They went down there for "greener pastures" AKA "less regulation". Don't imagine that Argentinians suddenly realized how to produce beef cattle that Americans will eat because they didn't. Americans did.
1. Trump is bragging he is going to import a ton of beef from Argentina.
2. Trump is going after the processors who are accused of using bribes and fraud to artificially raise the price of beef while denying any of it to the farmers.
For those who don't know, right now a handful of beef processors control the entire US market. If you want to buy beef, and you aren't buying direct from a farm, you are buying it through these processors. These processors are not good people, and I think some of them have already sold out to China.
It wasn't too long ago that the USDA made sure that the beef industry could not be dominated by a few big players. They made sure that farmers could get a fair price from the local sale barns because every processor had to buy from local sale barns. Then the people distributing the butchered meat had to buy from local processors, and so on, and all of this was done on the open market, meaning anyone could come in and buy and sell.
The net effect of thousands of different markets working together was that farmers got to take home a fair chunk of the final beef price and no one could really price gouge and such.
Anyway, currently, beef producers (such as myself) are seeing higher prices, but nowhere near what you are seeing in the grocery store. It's utterly ridiculous. I am paying about half of what you are for custom beef grown by a local farmer, and I'm paying more than I've ever paid for processing at a local processor.
Now, when it comes to Argentina, my first reaction was "GOOD." Why? Because most of the beef I grow does not end up on an American dinner plate. Europe and Japan are paying top dollar for American beef, as they should. Americans are notorious for buying the cheapest protein they can find. Bringing in tons and tons of beef from Argentina is going to force the price of beef down by a lot, and it won't affect my prices even a little bit.
For the record, BEEF IS THE CHEAPEST PROTEIN OUT THERE TO PRODUCE. Compared to chicken, sheep, goat, and everything else, hands down Beef cattle are way easier to raise and manage than anything else. That's why so many retired farmers raise beef cattle. Even in old age they can manage what needs to be done and still turn a decent profit.
And with innovations like Joel Salatin's that encourage people to stop buying inputs and feed, the price of beef should be *EVEN LOWER* than it is today. For my 20 head of cows, I spend probably around $10,000 in inputs TOTAL. Half of that is hay and the other half is supplements such as minerals and protein. A tiny fraction is vet services. Labor really doesn't make up much either -- I touch the cattle twice a year MAX. As long as I don't buy an ounce of fertilizer or seed, my costs are DIRT CHEAP. I should be able to sell 20 calves each year at $1,000 each and STILL make a healthy profit. A similar story for stockers (they raise calves to weight) and so on. To put this all in perspective, at the end of the day, I am spending about $1 per pound of beef. That's WAY lower than all other forms of protein I can grow.
So I really don't mind seeing the packers get SCREWED and exposed on this whole scam.
Every American who works a real job SHOULD be eating a pound of beef every day. Not just any old beef, but American-grown grass-fed no-vaccine no-antibiotic beef. We simply don't have the supply to do that yet, but we can. We can even beat Argentina because a good chunk of the US is PRIME beef pasture land. Remember, pasture land isn't good enough to grow corn and beans. It's just a step "up" from forest -- land that is otherwise useless.
10 years from now our supply of beef cattle will go back to "normal" levels. We got our butts kicked by the recent droughts and by packers who have been cheating us out of our "good years". Once that is fixed, once Americans realize how good beef is for them and how cheap it really is, we'll be back to feeding our nation again.
BTW -- the guys growing beef in Argentina are all American. They went down there for "greener pastures" AKA "less regulation". Don't imagine that Argentinians suddenly realized how to produce beef cattle that Americans will eat because they didn't. Americans did.
