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Farm Action releases plan to lower beef prices by rebuilding U.S. cattle production
The co-founder of political action group Farm Action says a new rancher-backed policy roadmap aims to rebuild the U.S. cattle industry and bring down retail beef prices.
Joe Maxwell says the group recommends restoring mandatory country of origin labeling for beef, as well as several other initiatives to strengthen the cattle sector.
“We’re talking an incentive of as much as $500 per retained breeding heifer to rebuild that herd.” He says, “We want to build back the pastures. And finally, we want the federal government to start procuring U.S. beef and not just beef.”
In addition to a historically small U.S. herd, He says the roadmap argues that today’s high beef prices are rooted in decades of consolidation in meatpacking and retail.
“This is an opportunity for us to go in and strengthen local and regional processing plants, anchoring government procurement to those plants,” he says.
Maxwell tells Brownfield it’s an actionable strategy that would secure the nation’s food supply.
“We need to have a strategy coming out of Washington, D.C. that’s not just about bringing in foreign beef to fill our grocery store shelves, but it’s about rebuilding the cattle herd,” he says.
Maxwell says the group plans to push the roadmap to lawmakers as Congress continues to debate an updated farm bill.
AUDIO: Joe Maxwell – Farm Action
Why would anyone want to increase their herd knowing that prices will go down presumably leading to financial losses?
The people in charge underestimate the fact that many producers were born at night but not last night