Nearly two and a half months into President Donald Trump's 90-day plan to lower beef prices by expanding imports of beef trim, American ranchers are taking a financial hit while consumers are seeing little relief at the grocery store.
Prices ranchers receive for cows used in ground beef have fallen nearly 20% since the plan took effect Sept. 1, according to a new analysis by Farm Action, a farmer advocacy organization.
For a rancher selling a 1,200-pound cow, that translates to approximately $319 less in revenue per animal.
Meanwhile, meatpackers are paying 16.6% less for lean beef, according to the report, while consumers are seeing only pennies in savings.
For Crook County rancher Tyler Lindholm, who also serves as Wyoming state director for Americans for Prosperity, the numbers aren't surprising.
"It's wild. It's almost like we've done this before," Lindholm told Cowboy State Daily.
The numbers raise questions about who is benefiting from Trump's efforts to make beef more affordable, particularly as Wyoming ranchers struggle with rising operating costs and an increasingly concentrated meatpacking industry.
Lindholm argues the answer is clear: It's not the ranchers, and it's not the consumers.
Who Gets The Discount?
In August, Trump announced a plan to allow an additional 300,000 metric tons of lean beef trimmings into the United States over 90 days at lower tariff rates.
The administration said the move would help bring down ground beef prices at the grocery store while protecting American ranchers and giving them room to rebuild the nation's depleted cattle herd.
The plan took effect Sept. 1 and is scheduled to end Nov. 30.
But with less than three weeks remaining, the economic benefits have been difficult to find outside the meatpacking industry, according to Farm Action's analysis.
The imported lean beef trimmings are intended to be blended with domestically produced beef to make ground beef.
And that's where Lindholm sees a fundamental problem with the policy.
"Whenever you hear about 300 metric tons of scrap, ask yourself, when was the last time you bought beef trim?" Lindholm said. "Nobody buys trim except big packers, so who's getting the discount?"
The imported trimmings aren't products consumers purchase directly at grocery stores. They're ingredients used by meat processors, meaning any savings must make their way through the supply chain before reaching shoppers.
So far, Lindholm said, that hasn't happened.
He also questioned the influence of the nation's largest meatpacking companies on the administration's decision.
Lindholm pointed to a visit to the White House by the CEO of JBS, one of the world's largest meatpacking companies, shortly before Trump's announcement.
"Correlation is not always causation, but in this situation, it certainly looks like the big packers captured our president," Lindholm said. "They convinced him to go down a road he was convinced would lower beef prices for everyone."
Lindholm’s comments reflect a broader concern among ranchers about the concentration of power in the American beef industry, where a handful of large processors dominate much of the market.
Sarah Carden, Farm Action's senior director of research and policy, said the latest figures illustrate that imbalance.
"What’s striking about these numbers is how much of the price pressure is falling on cattle producers while meatpackers continue to benefit," Carden said in a statement. "This is what happens when a handful of powerful companies have too much control over the beef supply chain.
"Lowering what ranchers are paid isn't a sustainable way to make beef more affordable. We need to address the lack of competition in this industry and build a market that works for both producers and consumers."
Relief At The Grocery Store
The early results of Trump's import plan have also raised questions among agricultural economists.
James Mitchell, a livestock economist at the University of Arkansas, told Brownfield Ag News in October that retail beef prices had remained largely unchanged despite the expanded import allowance.
At the time, only about 38% of the first month's 100,000-metric-ton import quota had been filled.
"It was well below the 100,000 metric tons allowed," Mitchell told Brownfield. "That leaves close to 63,000 metric tons not filled of that quota."
Yet even with imports falling well short of the allowed amount, cattle producers were already feeling the effects.
Mitchell said prices for cull cows — typically older breeding cows removed from a herd and sold into the beef market — had come under pressure.
That's significant for ranchers because selling those cows provides an important source of income beyond the annual calf crop.
"If you look at enterprise budgets, really at any state, cull cows are from year-to-year, 15 to 30 percent of cow-calf revenue," Mitchell told Brownfield.
For Wyoming ranchers, that means a drop in cull-cow prices can take a meaningful bite out of an operation's annual revenue.
Gut Punch During Calf Season
Lindholm said the timing of Trump's announcement made the situation particularly frustrating for Wyoming ranchers.
The president announced the plan in late August, just as many wWestern cattle producers were preparing for one of the most important financial events of their year: Fall calf sales.
For ranchers who spend the better part of a year raising calves, those sales can determine whether an operation turns a profit.
Lindholm said announcing an expanded beef import plan at that time was a gut punch to producers already navigating an unpredictable market.
And while the policy was intended to address consumer frustration over high beef prices, Lindholm is convinced it overlooked the people producing the beef.
He also sees political consequences.
"This is the cost of putting ranchers and farmers second," he said.
According to Lindholm, Americans for Prosperity surveyed voters in seven battleground states shortly before the midterm elections and found that 84% of those surveyed cited the cost of living as a top reason for their votes.
He said he believes the administration's approach to beef prices reflects a broader failure to address the economic concerns of American producers and consumers alike.
"Hopefully this is a call to action for the administration to abandon these kinds of policies that put foreign nationalists first," Lindholm said. "Maybe now we can start putting our own country first and seeing prices fall."
Weathering The Market
For Wyoming ranchers, the latest controversy is another reminder of just how little control they have over the prices they receive for the livestock they raise.
Between volatile cattle markets, rising expenses, unpredictable weather and federal policies that can change the economics of an operation almost overnight, ranching has never been a business for the faint of heart.
Lindholm said he believes the answer for some producers could lie in a practice that was once commonplace across the rural West: Diversification.
He points to the generations of farmers and ranchers who came before World War II, when agricultural operations often included far more than a single commodity.
Families raised cattle, milked cows, kept chickens and found multiple ways to generate income from the land.
Over time, many operations became increasingly specialized.
Lindholm said a return to that older model could help western ranchers survive an increasingly uncertain future.
That could mean finding additional sources of agricultural income, marketing beef directly to consumers or taking advantage of growing interest in locally produced food.
It's a difficult adjustment for longtime ranchers accustomed to raising and selling cattle the same way their families have for generations.
But Lindholm said he sees opportunities for those willing to adapt.
As more consumers seek local food and closer connections to the people who produce it, he said, Wyoming ranchers might have an opportunity to capture more of the value of their livestock rather than relying entirely on the traditional meatpacking system.
Farm Action plans to release a final assessment when the 90-day period concludes at the end of November.
Until then, ranchers are left watching cattle prices fall while the price of ground beef at the grocery store remains stubbornly high.
Kate Meadows can be reached at kate@cowboystatedaily.com.
