Strong Water Ranch

08/28/2026

08/27/2026

THE WH AGREEMENT MADE OFFICIAL TODAY. ICA ISSUES THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT:

STATEMENT ON TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FOREIGN BEEF AGREEMENT & REOPENING OF US SOUTHERN BORDER

Lockhart, TX — The Independent Cattlemen’s Association of Texas (ICA) is extremely discouraged by the White House’s agreement to import more than three hundred thousand metric tons of foreign beef to enter the United States on a tariff-free basis. Made official the same week the southern border was reopened.

American feedlots’ growing dependence on cheaply raised Mexican cattle produced in a quasi-narco state, used to keep pens full and chase a profit margin or even a break-even, is an unsustainable market dynamic. It does not serve the American cattle producer or the American consumer.

American beef packing plants’ aggressive pursuit of total integration and mass consolidation, a business model that depends almost entirely on foreign visa labor, is an unsustainable and dangerous market dynamic. It gives those firms dramatic leverage in the U.S. beef cattle marketplace and does not serve the American cattle producer, the American worker, or the American consumer.

American beef retailers’ increasing dependence on foreign beef produced with cheaper labor, cheaper feed, and standards below those American cattle producers must meet is likewise unsustainable and dangerous. It does not serve the American cattle producer or the American consumer.

For the first time in nearly a decade, the United States saw an increase in heifer retention, reported by USDA on July 24th. That increase was a stop to the long erosion of American beef cattle herd numbers. Sound federal policy had created a fairer U.S. beef cattle market, resulting in healthier cattle prices, allowing producers to remain in business, and giving American cattle producers a chance to enter, re-enter, and expand.

Those policies included tariffs on foreign beef entering the United States and closing the southern border to live cattle imports.

The administration’s reopening of the southern border to live cattle imports, coupled with the announced agreement to import three hundred thousand metric tons of foreign beef into the U.S. marketplace tariff-free, severely undermines the risks producers have taken to stay in the cattle business and pursue herd expansion. It undercuts the effort to restore the American beef cattle industry and achieve long-term consumer price stability.

The American beef consumer prefers quality American beef and a stable food-security system in the United States more than the chance of saving a few cents per pound in the short term, savings they will likely never see.

ICA membership is extremely discouraged by the news announced by the Trump administration over the last few days and urges the administration, in the strongest possible terms, to reverse course on these policies immediately.

08/27/2026

This definitely falls in the category of “I TOLD YOU SO!”

BREAKING: 30,000 pounds of raw Argentinian beef imported by the Trump administration has now been recalled.

The recall is classified by the USDA as Class I, which signifies a health hazard with a "reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death."

08/26/2026

Making Mexico Great Again at the expense of the American beef producers. 🤬😑

08/22/2026

You need to read and you need to understand. 😞

I don’t know why it surprises me but every time I see or hear something like this, it reminds me how EXTREMELY ignorant Americans are about finances and the food system.

The farmer gives his or her entire LIFE to put food on YOUR table, just so he can make MAYBE $2/lb while the store charges $10/lb. Through rain or snow. Heat or cold. Sun up to sun down. And you think beef prices need to come DOWN?

How about this instead:
Fight for lower state and federal taxes.
Fight for diminishing the hundreds of things we pay the GOVERNMENT.
Stop buying mindless things. Know where your food comes from.

You pay taxes on your home, your food, your clothing, the Starbucks coffee, anything you buy from anywhere. You pay taxes on your income and beyond.

Hello? Tap tap—is this thing on?

Have we not considered how it is CHEAPER to IMPORT beef and pay less for it when it travels thousands of miles from out of country to your grocery store?

Ludicrous. We will become a nation that is dependent on other nations (hello China, the largest pork producer in America), the big 4 oligarch packers, and whatever the government wants to feed us.

Dear America, your mindset needs to shift and change. Otherwise we are doomed. You’ll be living the hunger games before 2030.

08/22/2026

Wake up people! Depending on foreign countries for your food is not the answer!!

08/21/2026

Buy from your local beef producer!! Support them and know where and how your beef was grown.

I’m going to say this from the perspective of an American cattle producer, not from the perspective of a political party.

I am disappointed.

President Trump announced today that, for the next 90 days, the United States will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of product for ground beef to enter without the out-of-quota tariff, with the stated goal of lowering ground beef prices for American consumers.

I understand wanting to give consumers some relief at the grocery store. We all buy groceries too. We understand what inflation has done to American families.

But I have a hard time accepting that the answer to high beef prices is bringing in more foreign beef and intentionally putting downward pressure on the market American cattlemen have spent years fighting to rebuild.

Our cattle inventory is already historically tight. Producers have battled drought, hurricanes, skyrocketing feed and fertilizer costs, fuel prices, equipment costs, interest rates, labor shortages, disease threats, and a packing industry that has continued to consolidate. Many producers have finally reached a point where cattle prices actually reflect what it costs to stay in this business.

And now we're going to bring in cheaper foreign beef to fix the price at the meat counter?

That's frustrating.

Because cattlemen don't set the price of beef in the grocery store. The price you pay for a pound of ground beef and the price a producer receives for cattle are not the same thing. Yet when grocery prices become politically uncomfortable, it seems like the American producer is the easiest place to apply pressure.

Even cattle organizations and lawmakers friendly to this administration are raising concerns that increasing imports could discourage producers from retaining females, rebuilding herds and making the long-term investments necessary to increase American beef production.

You cannot tell American cattlemen that we need to rebuild the cow herd while simultaneously making decisions that create uncertainty about whether rebuilding that herd will pay.

Those two things don't go together.

And yes, I'm unhappy about it. Supporting someone politically doesn't mean blindly agreeing with every decision they make. When a policy hurts—or has the potential to hurt—the people who raise America's beef, cattlemen have every right to speak up.

But here's the other thing I know about cattle people:

We are resilient as hell!

We've survived droughts. We've survived hurricanes and floods. We've survived terrible markets, record input costs, disease outbreaks, packer consolidation and more government decisions than I care to count.

We'll survive this too.

We'll keep getting up before daylight. We'll keep feeding cattle. We'll keep improving genetics. We'll keep raising calves, rebuilding herds and producing one of the safest, highest-quality beef products in the world.

And most importantly, we'll stand together.

This industry has been knocked down plenty of times before, and every single time, cattlemen have gotten back up.

So while I strongly disagree with this decision, I haven't lost faith in the American cattleman.

Not for one second.

Buy American beef. Support American ranchers. And never underestimate the resilience of the people who feed this country. 🇺🇸

08/16/2026

“CATTLE DIDN'T NEED ALL THIS STUFF BACK THEN.”

You're right. 😂

I hear some version of this fairly often.

Cattle didn't need grain. They didn't need carefully balanced rations. They didn't need vaccines, mineral programs, reproductive management and everything else we do with modern dairy cattle.

Well...touche.

But there's a pretty important piece missing from that argument:

Grandpa's cow wasn't my cow.

We've spent generations selectively breeding dairy cattle.

We've selected for milk production, butterfat, protein, udders, feet and legs, fertility, longevity, health traits and countless other characteristics.

The modern dairy cow is the result of generations of intentional genetic selection.

And when you change the animal, her management requirements change too.

A cow producing a tremendous amount of milk has tremendous nutritional demands. That milk doesn't magically appear in the udder. The energy, protein, minerals and other nutrients required to produce it have to come from somewhere.

That's where quality forage, grain, minerals and properly balanced rations enter the picture.

And vaccines?

Cattle didn't suddenly become incapable of surviving without vaccines.

We simply learned considerably more about infectious disease and developed ways to prevent some of it rather than standing around hoping an animal survived it.

Which brings me to my favorite part of the “they didn't need that back then” argument:

Cattle died back then, too.

A lot of them did.

The existence of cattle before modern veterinary medicine doesn't prove that every management practice we use today is unnecessary. It proves cattle existed before we understood nearly as much as we do now about nutrition, disease, genetics and prevention.

And modern genetics hasn't stood still, either.

Today we're increasingly selecting for health, fertility, productive life, disease resistance, feed efficiency and other traits that help create a healthier, more sustainable cow—not simply more milk.

So yes.

Grandpa's cow may have lived on pasture without a nutritionist, genomic testing, vaccines or a carefully formulated ration.

But Grandpa's cow wasn't being asked to be a modern dairy cow.

We changed the genetics.
We increased her capabilities.
And our responsibility to manage her appropriately changed right along with them.