Usda Takes Steps To Boost Beef Prices Agency To Buy Up To $30 Million In Beef Products
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will purchase up to $30 million in beef products to try to improve prices in the cattle industry.
Meat prices, particularly for beef and pork, are low because of high supplies and high feed prices.
“Right now, producers are operating below break-even levels,” said U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman in a release. “These additional beef purchases will help offset a surplus supply of fed cattle which is depressing prices to ranchers, farmers and feedlot operators.”
The Northwest beef industry typically follows the national beef industry. After facing a market low in 1996, Northwest ranchers and livestock managers have struggled to survive.
“We pretty much follow the national trends,” said Tom Platt, Washington State University extension agent. “The cattle market is cyclical. It operates on a 10-year cycle, and usually when the low comes, we lose three or four or five percent of our producers.”
The USDA’s purchase, in addition to another $141 million purchase for the 1997-98 school lunch program, will give beef prices a small boost. The $30 million offered this week is about three percent of weekly U.S. beef production.
“It’s not going to mean a whole lot,” Platt said. “But it will help.”
The extra beef purchased by the USDA will be distributed through federal food assistance programs to food banks and other charities.
The USDA is also helping beef sales through export credit guarantee programs. More than $160 million in sales abroad have been made this year with the aid of these programs.
“Maintaining and expanding export markets is critically important for American farmers and ranchers,” Glickman said. “We will continue to aggressively support opportunities to use all of the tools at our disposal to promote U.S. agricultural exports.”
Beef prices have already improved, Platt said.
“Herds have been cut down and there’s the feedlot cattle that will be worked out (of the system) in the next few months,” he said. “Then prices may go up a little, but the high pork supplies should keep beef prices moderate.”
, DataTimes