Teslag said:

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The Collective said:

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Anyone remember when brisket was cheap meat? Thanks hipsters.

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Hell I can remember when skirt steak was cheap meat

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Tripas, mollejas, barbacoa?

The cattle market has always cycled. Give it another 2 years and it will drop.

The "Cattlemen should not have voted for Trump" nonsense is all over Facebook, along with "it's the packers fault" fallback.

A quick search shows November slaughter cattle at $240/cwt making a slaughter steer worth about $2880. 60% carcass weight, and another 30%(+) of bone/fat cutout leaves about #500 of retail cuts. That's just under $6 a pound with zero transportation, zero packaging/slaughter labor, zero retail markup, zero spoilage, ………no wonder ground sirloin is $7. I just don't see all that wiggle room for the packer in there.

Teslag said:

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The Collective said:

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Anyone remember when brisket was cheap meat? Thanks hipsters.

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Hell I can remember when skirt steak was cheap meat

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Same. And as mentioned previously, once the suburban gringos found it all of a sudden the meat is "steak" and jumps up like anything in price.

From what I've seen, Trump's getting cattle from whatever country we just gave tens of billions of dollars to, so hopefully that'll force prices to go down.

It won't be much. They have plenty of other export gigs.

84AGEC said:

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The cattle market has always cycled. Give it another 2 years and it will drop.

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Probably closer to 5 years most cattleman have already taken advantage of these high prices and have their herds about as small as possible

Short supply for the next few years but as soon as herd size recovers even a little bit The reality of vegetarians and people just eating less beef will make for a much lower market is my WAG

B-1 83 said:

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It won't be much. They have plenty of other export gigs.

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Well that's not sounding worth the money we're giving them.

Quote:

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Probably closer to 5 years

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agreed

I'm guessing not a lot of ranchers and cattlemen on this thread. I'm pretty new to it personally but my family has been cattle ranching since 1937. The sell price of cattle didn't move much for like 30 years and packers made ALL the money. Then it flipped and the last 18 months of that and they are hurting while cattlemen literally suffered with low prices for decades.
I agree there needs to be balance, but my main point is simply that this isn't greedy ranchers, but market affected by a large shortage of beef.

I don't know that I'd call it greed. To work my butt off to provide the best product i am able to leaves me wanting as much at I can get for said product.

captkirk said:

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texagbeliever said:

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1 lb of ground beef is nearly $8. A few years ago that was $4. Food cost inflation is ridiculous.

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This. Beef prices are at stupid levels

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I'm not a rancher but you nor the government has the right to determine how much they make. State control isn't the answer.

I only determine when I take them to sell. I can choose to hold sometimes to wait for better trends, that's it.

While I agree that the cattle and beef market is definitely "out of whack" right now, I believe it will fix itself thru supply and demand dynamics soon enough.

For me the real question that no one seems to be exploring, is "why Argentina?"

I doubt Trump was just sitting around one day and decided all on his own that we should import beef from Argentina of all places. So I'm curious who brought up that idea, and how they will profit from it.

Like most consumers we have limited our beef purchases. This trend will realign the market, no need to add foreign beef.

FYI with SNAP benefits running out in November, the paying consumers can expect a surplus of good quality beef for the next few months.

just did a little AI query. for anyone just curious or interested. data mostly from 2023-2024.

Global beef production is 62 million metric tons/year
Top beef producing countries:

1. USA (20% of global production) 12.29 million metric tons
2. Brazil 11.85 million metric tons
3. China 7.79
4. EU 6.63
5. India 4.57 (not so sacred after all i guess?)
6. Argentina 3.18
7. Australia 2.58
8. Mexico 2.26
9. Russia 1.44



Global beef exports is 10.2 million metric tons/year
Top beef exporters:

1. Brazil: 2.9 million metric tons
2. Australia: 1.7
3. USA: 1.3
4. India: 1.2
5. Argentina: .8
6. New Zealand
7. Uruguay
8. Canada
9. Paraguay
10. Netherlands



Sources of USA beef consumption:

90% domestic, but almost 5 billion pounds of beef imports to USA mostly for lean trimmings or specific cuts. 90% of our imports come from these top 5:
1. Australia
2. Canada
3. Mexico
4. New Zealand
5. Brazil



so, currently Argentine beef is not in the top 5 of imports for us. ...but perhaps tarrifs and shipping costs will make it cheaper for the consumer than Aussie or New Zealand beef? ..an assuming Canadian industry is under the same pressures as we are? and Mexican beef may have some health concerns?

The simple answer is Trump likes Milei and wants to bail out their economy. It would also be easy to import beef from Brazil, but Trump slapped them with a 50% tariff on beef in August.

HTownAg98 said:

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The simple answer is Trump likes Milei and wants to bail out their economy. It would also be easy to import beef from Brazil, but Trump slapped them with a 50% tariff on beef in August.

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Bingo. And the main reason Brazil got slapped with high tariffs, despite the US having a trade surplus with them, is because they prosecuted Bolsonaro, who Trump also likes.

Brazil rigged elections for the socialist and put the popular anti-socialist in jail. Argentinians finally had enough socialism and elected an anti-socialist to change things up. If I had to pick one…

I will never financially recover from this

Over_ed said:

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HTownAg98 said:

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The only way to allow for some short-term price relief is by importing more beef. Pausing the tariff import quota from Argentina would help.

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This.

But, again, we are back to Trump picking winners and losers. Via Tariffs.

Another example: He just suspended the auto tariffs (on parts) for 5 years - to help auto manufacturers. Needless to say, this does not help bringing part manufacturing into the US.

This is a terrible way to run the economy, not least because of the unpredictability, which is a real killer for any business/industry. Like a cat chasing a shiny laser pointer.

On reigning in the excesses of the left, a solid A. Because of tariffs and deficit, economy is a gentleman's C, and only because the left would have been worse.

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My guess is the op sales cattle … right now and the last few months of your a seller the market is high and guys are making a lot of money on selling … I've seen good pairs ..( momma cow with a calf) for for $3500-5000!! That's insane … and on the other hand smaller folks can't afford to buy a few cows or calves like they use to so some small farms are kinda disappearing unfortunately….. so in turn beef in the store is higher … it does need to come down some
And I'm sure there is a happy medium to be found for all…. Just gotta take little time to find it … hopefully

I'm cynical and maybe a conspiracy theorist, but I wonder who profits from the decision to prioritize beef purchases from Argentina?

chris1515 said:

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I'm cynical and maybe a conspiracy theorist, but I wonder who profits from the decision to prioritize beef purchases from Argentina?

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I can't name them all but I can assure you someone with the last name Trump will profit to a large degree in some way.

everyone knows Ivanka & Kushner and Eric Trump have been investing in Argentine beef in their spare time

there's no possible way the Donald would be making a deal to help consumers with beef prices when he should be committed to maximizing profits for the ranchers and packers

chris1515 said:

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I'm cynical and maybe a conspiracy theorist, but I wonder who profits from the decision to prioritize beef purchases from Argentina?

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The beef will most likely be shipped here and go thru USDA inspections... and the same people that control the beef market today - Tyson, JBS, and Cargill - will still control it, IMO.

84AGEC said:

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The cattle market has always cycled. Give it another 2 years and it will drop.

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Seems like we've already been *****ing about high beef prices for 7 years or so.