Consumers Are Not Benefiting From The Import Of More Beef

New analysis from the American Farm Bureau Federation shows Administration’s plan to lower the tariffs on imported beef has not met the intended goal of lowering prices for consumers. AFBF economist Faith Parum said they studied beef prices at 41 grocery stores in September.

“To see how the price of 80/20 ground beef would change, and we found since September 2nd-24th, prices only decreased about 2%, with some stores really not changing their price at all," Parum noted. "So, even though we're importing more beef than ever, we're still not seeing consumers' price go down.”

Parum said the higher prices can be attributed to the size of the U.S. cattle herd.

“You know, in the United States, we have a record-low cattle herd size," Parum said. "That's really reducing the supply of beef in the United States. On top of that, we have limited imports from Mexico due to New World Screwworm, and all of that is causing that supply to shrink. Anytime supply goes down, as we keep having this high demand for beef, that's going to push those prices up. So, it's going to take a long-term fix.”

Parum added importing foreign beef is only a short-term fix for what is actually a years-long problem.

"When we think about how do we, long-term, bring prices down for consumers, rebuilding that cattle herd size is number one," she said. "Policies like suspending the tariff rate quota actually incentivize farmers and ranchers to sell part of their herd because they are seeing that market volatility, and they're not getting those signals to rebuild that herd."

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