From agriculture.com - Newsweek’s Hugh Cameron reported that “ground beef prices across the U.S. continue to reach new highs, driven by shrinking cattle herds, with looming import restrictions threatening to push costs even higher.” “According to government data released last week, the average price of a pound of 100% ground beef rose to $6.12 last month, up from $5.98 in May and $5.47 in June 2024,” Cameron reported. “Experts have said this trend shows no signs of slowing, meaning there may be upward pressure on prices through 2026 and beyond.”
Partially caused by tariffs (30% of ground beef is imported), the size and quality of our feed stock, and more likely than not, the greed of processors. Take a look at that chart. That covers the last 20 years, but the increases in just the past two years are startling. One way to get more for less is to buy lower-quality cuts of beef - and pork - and smoke it yourself. It'll cost less, lasts longer, and tastes great. Juss' sayin'...
Take a look at what happened over the course of the brain dead administration to see the main reason.
ReplyDeleteI walk around the meat section at the grocery store like my wife walks around the jewelry store, just stare , point & ooh & aww.
ReplyDeleteBut Trump says all these other countries are paying us these tariffs?
ReplyDeletePrices would plunge if the Feds would deport all of the 50 to 60 million illegals wandering around collecting free taxpayer funded hand-outs and driving up demand for everything - food, fuel, real estate....
ReplyDelete(iillegals are probably about one seventh - 14% of our current population estimated at 342 million)
Beef prices...
ReplyDeleteThe live cattle futures market
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodities
Go down a good bit (the 5th grouping) to Live Cattle.. right now it's 231.8 cents per pound ($2.31 and 8 tenths). That's for a live delivery of 40,000 pounds of cattle, at some later date.
$2.31 a pound before any processing....
What is it with Americans and fractions? Would it not be simpler to say $2.318?
DeleteI watch quite a few American machining & diy youtube channels and you regularly see people convert between different fractional forms for their measurements and it boggles the mind that they would complicate things like that.
For a number of years, US ranchers were cutting back on livestock because it was costing too much to raise them. Now that the numbers have been reduced a lot the price is skyrocketing. Supply and demand - something the government thinks they can ignore. As for the cost of raising them...government tomfoolery.
ReplyDeleteThis is how you get cattlemen to raise more beef cattle. When prices make it worth their while. It's called supply and demand. The real question to ask is why did ranchers decide to keep their herds small the past few years. Cost of fuel to raise grain to feed them? A hostile federal government that tried to restrict grazing? (Note the lawsuits to throw all the cattle ranching off of Pt. Reyes Calif.)
ReplyDelete