Here’s what Nebraska cattle producers think about the USDA beef industry plan

After receiving backlash from ranchers over a potential beef deal with Argentina, the Trump administration unveiled a plan this week to “fortify the American beef industry.”

The new policy plan, announced by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins on Wednesday, focuses on three priorities – protecting and improving the business of ranching, expanding processing, consumer transparency and market access, and building demand alongside domestic supply.

According to the USDA, the national herd is at a 75-year low, and the country has lost more than 150,000 cattle operations since 2017. At the same time, demand has grown by around 9% in the past decade, leading to record high beef prices.

The new plan would increase cattle grazing access by allowing additional use of federal lands and streamlining the permitting process. It would also begin enforcing compliance of products with a “Made in the USA” label to ensure they come from animals born, raised and slaughtered in the United States.

Craig Uden, the president-elect of Nebraska Cattlemen, said he appreciates policies like new financing and insurance opportunities for young producers. He estimates the current average age of cattle ranchers in the state is above 60.

“You're going to see a lot of movement in the next 10 years to where you're going to need more and more of these young producers to step up and in over time,” he said. “I don't want to call anybody risk averse, because they're really not, it's just lack of access to capital or having enough insurance, some kind of a risk-management tool, to ensure that it doesn't take them down.”

The Nebraska Cattlemen issued a statement earlier this week saying that it opposes government interference in the cattle market.

“Introducing unnecessary price volatility into the cattle and beef marketing chain and fostering uncertainty during the time of year when many producers are making heifer retention and herd expansion decisions risks a negative impact on the one true long-term solution for currently elevated beef prices – expansion of the U.S. beef cattle herd,” it read.

Uden said the plan unveiled Wednesday is a step in the right direction.

“We need to concentrate our focus and find market-based solutions,” he said. “And I think that the Rollins publication this this week was a good start, and I think we can continue to work with them and communicate what works best for our producers.”

Spike Jordan, a rancher from Harrison in the northwest part of the state, said the plan is a welcome change after years of a federal bureaucracy being “openly adversarial to animal agriculture.”

Jordan said he’d like to see a revitalization of the Packers and Stockyard Act and reinstatement of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration, (GIPSA), which was dissolved in 2017, but said the policies are “by-and-large a good start.”