Missouri Farmers Union opposes proposals to import more than 660 million pounds of foreign beef into the American market.
Missouri is one of the nation’s leading cattle-producing states, home to roughly 60,000 farms that raise cattle, from the plains of northern Missouri to the hills of the Ozarks. Most are small and midsized family operations, not large corporate feedlots, and they sustain the local jobs and economic activity that rural communities depend on.
These farmers are already managing high fuel and input costs and drought conditions across much of the state. Flooding the market with cheap imported beef would place additional
downward pressure on cattle prices at a time when producers can least afford it.
Most Missouri cattle operations are cow-calf operations doing the foundational work of rebuilding America’s cattle herd, now at its lowest level in roughly 75 years. That rebuilding requires farmers to retain heifers, breed them, and wait for the next generation of calves. Undermining cattle prices now makes it harder for producers to stay in business, and harder to rebuild the domestic beef supply long term.
MFU also has serious questions about where imported beef would come from. Four meatpackers control approximately 85% of U.S. beef processing, and a portion of that market is foreign-controlled. Beef supply chains tied to South America have been linked to deforestation and loss of native grassland. Consumers deserve to know the environmental, labor, and food-safety standards attached to any imported beef before it reaches their table.
That starts with transparency in the source of our beef supply. MFU supports restoring Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (MCOOL) for beef, so consumers can see at the grocery
store whether the beef they’re buying was born, raised, and processed in the United States, and choose to support American producers accordingly.
MFU calls on USDA to reject beef import proposals that undercut American producers, and to invest instead in rebuilding the U.S. cattle herd and strengthening local and regional beef supply.
-President Katie Nixon