President Trump summons advisers to combat rising beef prices and inflation
President Donald Trump has convened a team of economic and industrial advisors to address rising beef prices and broader inflation concerns. The group will focus on strategies to lower the price of ground meat and provide relief to American families facing rising grocery costs.
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- Experts say high consumer demand and historically small U.S. cattle herds are driving up beef prices.
- U.S. cattle herd size is at its lowest in 75 years.
- Ranchers point to drought, high feed costs and the profit margins of large meat processors as factors contributing to the price hike.
- Analysts don’t expect beef prices to fall anytime soon, but they think supply and demand may be leveling out.
Retail prices for beef in all categories are higher than they were a year ago, and experts see no signs of them dropping anytime soon.
How did we get here? Dr. Daniel Sumner, distinguished professor of agricultural economics at the University of California, Davis, says it all comes down to high demand and low supply. But Brian Stevenson, president of the Shasta County Cattlemen’s Association, said the profit margins of major international meat packers may have more to do with it than that.
Read below to find out why beef prices are so high.
Why is the price of beef so high?
Mr Sumner said increased demand for protein in recent years was the main factor influencing the rise in beef prices.
“There’s been a lot of news and interest in expanding protein, especially high-quality, balanced protein in people’s diets. Whether you’re old or young, active or inactive, the message is to eat more protein,” Sumner said.
This move has led shoppers to spend more money on high-quality protein when going to the grocery store. But there are plenty of different forms of protein on the market, from chicken and pork to milk and even Greek yogurt. Why is the price of beef in particular soaring?
Sumner said this is due to interaction with the historically small U.S. cattle herd.
As of January 1, 2026, the U.S. cattle herd size was 86.2 million head, the smallest in 75 years, but has been declining since 2021. On the other hand, the selling price of live cattle has been rising since 2020. This poses a dilemma for ranchers. Should you sell your cattle now to take advantage of record high prices, or save your herd and allow your population to recover? up?
“People are bringing more products to market now,” Sumner said.
As a result, the U.S. cattle herd has “stabled at this very low level,” keeping the supply of beef on the market low. Combined with historically high demand for protein, Sumner says this relationship effectively causes beef prices to rise.
Why is the domestic cattle herd so small?
Sumner has several ideas about how the herd became so small.
One is productivity. Advances in technology and science have allowed modern cows to produce more meat than in the past, Sumner said. This reduces the number of cows needed to meet international beef demand, leading to a gradual decline in the number of cows over time.
The other is that cattle sales prices rose sharply in 2023 and remained relatively stable until 2025. This led ranchers to sell “older cows and heifers to take advantage of what they thought would be a temporarily high price,” Sumner said. In reality, cattle prices rose even higher in late 2025 and into 2026, delaying the herd rebuilding period that ranchers had expected was already here.
Sumner also believes the low number of cows may be due to a downward trend in U.S. beef consumption that preceded the recent surge in demand.
What do local ranchers say is driving up beef prices?
Mr Stevenson agreed that demand for beef was “definitely not going down” and said it was stable despite rising beef prices. But he has a different perspective on the supply side of things and the factors that may actually be influencing price increases.
First, he said, the small herd size is not the rancher’s fault.
Asked if ranchers were taking advantage of high cattle prices at the expense of herd size, Stevenson said, “Speaking from a multi-generational rancher standpoint, you’re not going to do something for today’s profit if you’re going to die tomorrow.”
He emphasized that ranchers cannot determine the selling price of their cattle.
“We’re kind of benefiting from the market, and the people above us are benefiting from the meat packers,” Stevenson said.
Instead, Stevenson points to drought and high input costs as reasons for the decline in herd size. He said drought in “major cattle states” has forced ranchers to sell large portions of their herds. Stevenson also said many ranchers reduced herds when feed prices rose in 2019 and 2020.
My impression among local ranchers is that there may be more powerful factors at play when it comes to beef prices than simple supply and demand.
In the past, imports from international beef markets played a large role in regulating the price of U.S. cattle, Stevenson said. However, due to the impact of the new coronavirus infection, travel restrictions began, and the amount imported to the U.S. market decreased. Current foreign tariffs and a ban on imports of cattle from Mexico to prevent the spread of the New World screwworm extended these effects into 2026.
This dependence on domestic beef has increased input costs for the beef industry as a whole, primarily impacting the Big Four meat packers. Tyson, JBS, Cargill, and National Beef control up to 85% of the U.S. beef market.
This increased input cost is passed on to the “grocery guys” by these powerful meat processing companies, pushing prices up to meet profit margins, Stevenson said.
When will beef prices drop?
“Nobody expects prices to go down anytime soon,” Sumner said.
But the good news is that the problem of high demand and low supply may be leveling out.
Sumner said demand for beef “may be at saturation point,” in other words, it can’t get any bigger. If that happens, “it will give the supply side a chance to catch up,” he says.
And Stevenson is hopeful that eventually supply will reach stable levels again.
“Nationally speaking, the American beef herd can be rebuilt. They’ve been through these cycles throughout history, from the 1920s, ’30s, ’40s to the 2000s. Numbers go up and go down,” Stevenson said.
Record Searchlight reporter Jessica Skropanich contributed to this report.
Drew Askeland covers Reading and Shasta County government issues, as well as anything else that needs reporting for Record Searchlight and the USA Today Network. Contact draw.askeland@redding.com or (530) 225-8247. To support and sustain this effort, please subscribe today. thank you.
