OR: RANCHERS FEAR BEEF IMPORT PLAN HURTS FARMERS
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JUNCTION CITY, Oregon (KEZI) — Oregon cattle ranchers say the Trump administration’s plan to import foreign beef could hurt local farmers even as it aims to lower record-high prices at the grocery store.
President Trump announced a plan Friday to allow tariff-free imports of up to 300,000 tons of beef for 90 days. Trump says the imported beef will be sold at 25% below market price.
“This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again,” President Trump said in an Aug. 21 post to Truth Social.
In response, the Oregon Farm Bureau said it was “deeply disappointed” by the decision, saying imported beef would undercut local ranchers.
“We understand that families are frustrated by high grocery prices, but cheap imports are a short-term fix with a deferred cost,” said Oregon Farm Bureau president Angela Bailey. “The long-term path to affordable beef is growing a healthy domestic cattle industry and pursuing policies that lower the cost of producing food here at home.”
John Deck and his wife Christine opened Deck Family Farm in Junction City in 2004, selling beef among other products through delivery services and local farmers markets. The farm has grown from a family operation to a 20-employee operation.
But Deck says the tariff plan creates uncertainty for local farmers at a time when ranchers are already feeling significant pressure.
“My initial reaction to the tariffs is that this isn’t needed because we produce a lot of beef in this country. And so we need to be focusing on our own game here, we don’t need to be importing foreign beef,” Deck said.
The move comes as beef prices sit at an all-time high, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. According to the bureau, ground beef now costs nearly $7 per pound.
“Right now, it’s expensive, but that’s cyclical supply and demand,” Deck said. “We should see prices lowering, we need to be looking at the long game, in terms of food security in this country, and how do we develop a stable economy for producing our own foods here in this country.”
Deck worries the imports could lower grocery prices short-term but disrupt the local food system long-term.
“I think the ultimate fear is that you’re going to find less local farmers and we’re going to end up outsourcing more of our food to other countries, which is going to create more of a fragile food system,” Deck said.
The Oregon Farm Bureau also raised concerns about the quality of imported beef, after President Trump declined to say where the beef would be sourced.
“We have a lot of organizations and departments, which helps us produce clean beef to help us protect the environment and to make sure that we have all these safeguards in our country,” Deck said. “By outsourcing beef from another country, we’re basically saying, we’re going to throw all that out the window, and it doesn’t matter, and we’re just going to import whatever’s the cheapest.”
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