Cheaper Beef for Whom?

What Would Your Best Last Day Look Like?

Author: Farmer Kelley

When someone first told me about the plan to bring in foreign beef to make food more affordable for Americans, I 100% thought it was fake news.
Since then, I’ve struggled with putting my thoughts on paper without sounding like sour grapes.  So instead, let’s follow the money.
The federal government has opened the door for 300,000 metric tons of imported lean beef trimmings to enter the United States at a lower tariff rate.
Here’s what happens after that foreign beef wet ages in plastic bags while making the trip across the ocean.   
The three largest beef processors will turn it into ground beef.
It can then be stamped “Product of the USA”
Those companies will move it through their existing supply chains.
The government says it has put measures in place to monitor the retail price of this imported beef.  BUT:

How much of those savings will actually make it into the consumer’s grocery cart?

In 2026 each of the big three processors closed their New England (region) slaughterhouse that was purchasing local animals from local farms at a fair market price.  It’s almost as if they knew they were going to have a new supply of product for less money and less work

Nowhere in this bill is a guarantee that consumers will realize any cost savings. 

What it does guarantee is that farmers and ranchers raising beef here in the United States will still be paying exorbitantly high prices for fuel, fertilizer, feed  and labor. A large majority  of them will continue to work full-time or multiple off farm jobs.  They will still focus on preserving open spaces, maintaining our waterways and regenerating our land. 

If we’re lucky. 
If small and independent farms can no longer afford to raise food, that land doesn’t necessarily stay farmland.
Sometimes it becomes subdivisions.
Sometimes it becomes shopping centers.
Sometimes the farm simply disappears.
And once enough of those farms are gone, we become increasingly dependent on other countries to feed us.
That is the part of this conversation that worries me.
I’m not against affordable food.
Quite the opposite.
I think everyone should be able to feed their family well.

But I don’t think we should confuse cheap food today with a secure food system tomorrow.

Keeping American farms alive feeds us for generations.
And that’s a conversation worth having.

Warmly,

Farmer Kelley