08/22/2026
I understand why people want cheaper beef. I do too. Groceries are expensive, families are struggling, and lowering food prices sounds like a good thing. But I think we need to look beyond what a pound of hamburger costs this week and ask what happens to American agriculture five or ten years from now.
Trump announced today that for the next 90 days, the U.S. will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef product to be imported without the out-of-quota tariff, with a commitment that it will be sold 25% below current market prices. That might sound great standing in the grocery store, but it looks very different when you’re standing in a pasture trying to figure out how to keep a farm going.
American ranchers have spent years fighting drought, wildfires, floods, hurricanes, extreme heat and brutal weather, on top of rising feed, equipment, land and interest costs. Our cattle herd is already historically small, and rebuilding it takes years. When cattle prices finally give ranchers an incentive to retain females and rebuild their herds, bringing in cheaper foreign beef to push prices down works against that. You cannot rebuild the American cattle herd while making raising cattle less profitable.
And this goes far beyond beef. We say we want to preserve farmland, keep farms from becoming subdivisions and data centers, keep young people in agriculture and produce more of our food here in America. But at the same time, we expect American farmers and ranchers to compete with the cheapest food we can bring in from somewhere else. We have to decide what having an American food supply is actually worth to us.
When a rancher sells the cows and the land, we can’t simply turn around and rebuild it when we realize we need it. Herds take years to build. Farms can take generations, and once farmland is developed, we’re probably never getting it back. Cheap food today can come with a much higher price tomorrow. If we really care about preserving farmland and American agriculture, supporting American farmers and ranchers can’t just be something we say. We actually have to buy what they produce.
Buy Local!!!
