I’m not so sure that this is a good idea.
President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday that his administration is considering importing beef from Argentina to lower its price at home and help Argentina stabilize its struggling economy, which he described as being in critical condition.
Dear King God-Emperor Donald: Those are both laudable goals, i.e. to help a loyal ally and simultaneously help U.S. consumers who are being flattened by stratospherically-high beef prices at home.
However, I can’t help but think that you should also consider trying to ease the crushing burden of federal regulations that beef farmers — actually, all farmers — have to deal with, regulations that are a legacy of the Leviathan State you’ve inherited. That will lower their cost of production, and should make beef less expensive.
Lowering beef prices through imports will simply make our beef farming less profitable — not that it’s all that profitable to begin with — and frankly, I care more about our farmers than about the Argies.
After all, it’s Make America Great Again, not Make Argentina Great Again. With all due respect to Señor Presidente Milei, he has to deal with problems of his country’s own making, just as we have to beat back the Commies Over Here. We can and should help him, but not at our own expense.
Just a thought.
Do enlighten us as to these regulations. All we hear about in the UK is how American beef isn’t fit for human consumption thanks to all the drugs the cattle receive and how the meat is treated. (And then there’s chlorinated chicken…)
Like many things in our modern economy, it’s complicated and there’s more than one reason.
Yes, there have been new(ish) regulations that increase costs, including waste treatment (Drive through El Paso on a warm day. Or drive through rural Iowa).
Another part of the problem is that many small to medium sized ranchers have either had their federal leases revoked, or have had significant price increases. The revocations were done on the basis of bad science, running ruminants across grasslands (or more so scrublands) tends to *increase* biodivierstity and is generally good for the soil. The cost if the leases increasing is, well if you’re paying the same for something in 2020 that you were in 1960, well, maybe there’s room for adjustment?
But the biggest reason *seems* to be a reduction in head count to the lowest level since 1961, with no reduction in demand (other than those like myself who just hate to spend that much).
Drought is being blamed for some of this, but I suspect that part of the problem is that ranching is *hard work*, and (again suspect) that it’s not as susceptible to automation as farming. Even so-called “factory farming” of cattle and pigs–and those seem to produce an inferior product.
Additionally we *were* getting a lot of beef from Mexico, but there was a screwworm parasite infestation that suspended imports.
And Trump increased tariffs, which hit meat importers as well.
So yes, we should take a hard look at the regulations and do a significant cost/benefit analysis on it, and another hard look at policies around allowing ranchers the use of federal lands (not park, federal lands) for grazing.
Beef cattle herd reductions really started in earnest during the China flu since nobody was going out to eat at nice steakhouses, and abominations like doordash took over. Cattlemen culled their herds. Even breeding stock was sold for meat since there was virtually zero demand and prices had crashed. It would cost more to feed and maintain them than they’d ever get in future markets. Now they have to rebuild the herds, and from what I was reading, that will take at least two or three more years until a new normal is found.
Something else to consider is that most of our meat products are produced by a hand full of meat packing corporations. It’s my understanding that the consolidation of the meat packing industry allows the processors to charge what they like and to somewhat dictate what price they’ll pay to the feedlot operators for their cattle, thus increasing their profits and our costs.
Also… the meat processing plants are facing higher salary costs as their use of illegal immigrants has been ICED.
I grew up in the Cattle bidnezz, (I sound like Kamala Harris).
It’s a lot of factors, mostly owing to .gov bastardy:
1. Your $$$ have less purchasing power, so it takes more paper to get more beef.
2. EPA regs (stated above). But a big driver for the EPA shit show is people fleeing the Golden Shower state and landing in rural type areas. They buy a house in a subdivision next to a feedlot, then bitch about the flies and the smell. Most exports the US receives from CA are negative.
3. Grazing leases. The BLM & USFS (at least where I’m at) don’t like cattle grazing at all for activist reasons, but legally its troublesome to just outright end it. So they try to make it burdensome enough for the herd-owners that they’ll get out on their own because the headaches aren’t worth the benefit.
4. The Golden-shower State used to be a huge driver in the livestock market, perfect, weather, year round growing etc. But the state (again for activist reasons) have basically regulated to producers out of existence, if they can’t move, they sell & get out.
5. Land that was previously used for Ag purposes, is getting sold off to developers, to build for the influx of people leaving blue state shitholia, especially if its adjacent to a city.
6. All livestock sales are dependent on the chokepoint of the Slaughterhouse. In the last 10 years the Packing-houses have been all bought by 3 big companies, 2 of which are offshore (Brazil & China) so they can pay the producers, $0.25 a pound and resell it to the consumer for $6.00 a pound.
7. Ag is hard work, especially the livestock end of it, and kids are too fucking lazy to want to do that kind of thing, when they can be tiktok influencers. So Mom & Dad who had a cattle producing ranch are either dying and the kids are selling it off, or are selling it off and getting out of the game. Daughter studied Ag at the University. The bulk of Ag students were girls (big change from my yoot) and the boys that were in the group, according to her, were the biggest pussies you’d ever meet. They may have grown up on a farm, but couldn’t change a tire, or didn’t know which end of the animal the shit came out of, because they’d never had to do anything hard.
8. Adjacent to item #7. Its capital intensive as hell. If you dont already have property and an Ag operation going, you aren’t going to buy one and make it work. The cost of the land & equipment far exceeds what the Cattle are going to generate as profit. Its worse when 40%+ goes to the .gov and 20% goes to the bank to service the loan. Thats before you see $0.01 to either put back into the operation or pay yourself.
Long rant. Sorry.
Another item is Fuel Costs. From the time a seed gets put in the ground or an animal is birthed, everything is carried on the back of Diesel Fuel. When Diesel hits $4:00 a gallon everything gets more expensive. EVERYTHING.
But hey at least we’re not adding carbon to the atmosphere.
Several of my ranching friends here in north Texas have partnered up and opened a meat processing facility to process & market their beef. According to them, the big processors (there are only four different companies in the entire U.S.) are selling U.S. beef to Argentina, and importing sub-standard beef from there for sale in the U.S. Argentina recognizes that our beef is superior enough to warrant the cost differential. There is another facility in Parker County processing locally raised beef & pork. Both have been very successful, and have the potential for serious growth. I bought from Parker County Beef Company until my friends had their operation up & running. Now I buy all my beef and pork from one of my friends outlets, Bluebonnet Meats, here in Granbury. Both have retail outlets and online shopping available. The national issues CW & William described have had no effect on my friends’ operation, ’cause local. They are more expensive than HEB beef, which is sourced both from Texas ranchers and the big four nationally, and a good bit more expensive than Walmart/Argentinian beef, but this will decrease as our local processers grow. Nothing better than your butcher picking out your cheeseburger while it’s still walking around in the grass!
The producers are trying to do that here in my area too. Open up their own packing houses.
The problem with that is that the conglomerates listed above, can wait ’till they get a producer plant built (with the sunk capital costs), then start paying $1.00 more per/lb than the independents. Eventually it will drive the indies into the red, and out of business.