ST. FRANCISVILLE — President Trump recently suggested that the United States import more beef from countries like Argentina to help lower costs for American consumers. The idea has sparked controversy, particularly among cattlemen across the country, who are debating whether it would help or harm both the industry and consumers.
In response, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association posted on Facebook in part: “If the administration is truly an ally of America’s cattle producers, we call on him to abandon this effort to manipulate markets…”
The organization also emphasized that the success of ranchers is driven by their own hard work.
John Thompson, a fifth-generation cattleman in St. Francisville, has been in the “cow business” for more than 50 years. He and his wife run John Thompson Farms, and he serves as Louisiana’s representative on the Cattle Beef Board. Thompson also recently completed his term as chairman of the Louisiana Beef Council and continues to serve on several other boards and programs.
“The cattleman has been struggling for a number of years,” Thompson said.
He believes the president is out of touch with what cattlemen, farmers, and ranchers endure and with the real factors driving higher beef prices in the U.S.
Thompson explained that producers are often at the mercy of market forces and price fluctuations set by others.
“We’ve seen calves go in the past from $250 to $300 cash to right at $2,000 a calf,” he said. “The farmer and the rancher have always been the underdog. We have to pay whatever people ask for seed to plant crops, for chemicals to spray fungicides and pesticides, for the fertilizer, and we’ve got to give somebody else what they want for their product. We have to accept what the market will bear, and we have to accept the price for what we get for our product.”
He added that rising costs for equipment, such as tractors, have only made matters worse. Between labor, feed, and maintenance costs, raising cattle today is often more expensive than profitable.
“We’ve got less cattle in the United States right now than we’ve had since the late 1940s and early 1950s, and it’s a supply-and-demand thing,” Thompason said. “Feed is is relatively cheap because the price of grain is cheap. He said that recent droughts have also reduced the cattle population, contributing to higher beef prices for consumers.
According to Thompson, Louisiana beef producers participate in the Beef Checkoff Program, where $1 from every livestock sale is split evenly with 50 cents going toward national beef promotion and 50 cents staying in Louisiana.
Louisiana is primarily a cow-calf state, meaning local ranchers focus on the early stages of beef production. The state’s humid climate isn’t suitable for feedlots, so most Louisiana calves are sold to drier states such as Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, where they are raised to about 800–900 pounds before entering feedlots.
A calf typically reaches slaughter weight between 18 and 24 months old, Thompson said. He estimates Louisiana sells about 250,000 to 300,000 calves annually, though drought conditions in recent years have reduced those numbers.
While Thompson doesn’t believe importing beef from Argentina is the solution for either consumers or producers, he said the concept itself isn’t new.
“We’ve been importing beef,” Thompson said. “I used to work at a grocery store when I was 18 years old. That’s 50 years ago, and we were importing beef from Australia then. It was boxed beef. We just made hamburger meat out of it.”
As a lifelong cattleman, Thompson believes it’s time for change, one that benefits not only the consumers buying beef off the shelves but also the people raising the animals.
“It’s about time we started getting paid for our product. It’s not like we can just flip a switch and all of a sudden there’s more beef. But bringing in beef from another country is not the answer.”
Download the Unfiltered with Kiran app from the Apple App Store and Google Play to stay updated on the latest news across the Capital area.
Support UWK and its mission to deliver The News You Deserve. Unfiltered. Become a monthly patron on Patreon today!
