Senator Marshall: The Real Problem with US Beef is the Supply – The Smallest Cattle Herds in a Generation
Senator Marshall Joins CBS to Discuss America’s Beef Market
Washington – On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined CBS Mornings with Tony Dokoupil and Adriana Diaz to discuss the state of America’s beef market, the recent beef deal with Argentina, and his support for cattle ranchers.
Click HERE or on the image above to watch Senator Marshall’s full interview.
“Well, I think that first of all, I want the ranchers to know that I’m standing beside them, that I understand that for the last 10 years we’ve had drought. Because of that, we haven’t had water in our ponds. We haven’t had pasture for our cattle, and consequently, we have the smallest cattle herd in my entire lifetime. That’s what’s driving up prices. In reality, they’re also making a little money, but I understand that in the last 10 years, we’ve lost money. So, they’re doing okay. And one of the reasons they’re doing okay are these successful trade agreements that President Trump negotiated, in Trump 45 a big agreement with Japan. More good news out of this, they’re buying the high-value beef. Let’s talk about Argentina just for a second. You could have went to the Chiefs game last night and went to 1000 different tailgates before you found one hamburger from Argentina. They make up less than 1/1000 of our beef, our beef supply right now. So, you could quadruple that and it wouldn’t touch it. What else is going on is because of tariffs on Brazil and because of a screw worm in Mexico, those countries are not importing hardly any beef into our country right now. So, Argentina could never begin to replace those imports. And one last point, we import hamburgers from those countries. We don’t make enough hamburgers in this country. We have high-value beef that we’re exporting right now. And by the way, beef is still half the price of fish out there. There are other alternatives. You can buy chicken, you can buy pork, if you feel like beef is too high. But I’m standing beside my ranchers.”
On the beef market and prices:
“Well, I think it will be much bigger than that. It typically takes three or four years for the cattle to turn around. It’s not like chickens, where you can have a new chicken every month. You keep a heifer, that’s the female calf, it takes two years, so she’s ready. So, it takes three or four years before you start growing the herd and seeing it at the marketplace right that. So those are the those are the other things going out there. I think our focus should be on taking care of the screw worm. In Mexico, we typically have about 1.2 million cattle come from Mexico. In this country right now, that’s completely shut off. So that would be the bigger market to go after right now. I think there’s bigger things going on in Argentina than the beef market. I think the President’s trying to push China out of South America. I think that’s what’s going on there.”
On trade imbalance in the beef market:
“Well, look, maybe we can both be right. You know the way trade works. Let me explain this again. We’re importing hamburger from Argentina because we don’t grow enough hamburger here. Our cattle are a much higher breed, higher protein value. We’re shipping steaks and roasts to Japan and to Southeast Asia right now, so we have to import some hamburger. Yes, we’ve got a trade imbalance going on that needs to be addressed. The President is trying to address that right now, and at the same time, pushing China out of South America. You can’t look at these issues in silos. We’re tickled pink that the ranchers are doing better again. They’ve not made; they’ve lost money. I’ve lost lots of money in ranching myself. And one last point here is that the ranchers are only getting about $2.30 a pound, but it’s selling at the market for $10 $12, why? You know, one of the challenges we have is that we have three packing plants controlling about 85% of the industry, and a lot of the markup is there. So, the President and Secretary Rollins are working on bringing more competition to the processing part of this as well.”
On solutions to the domestic supply issue:
“Well, look, I don’t know that the government can solve every problem right now, every rancher back in Kansas is trying to grow his herd. That’s what the market is telling them to do, but it takes three or four years to do that. Now, what the government is doing is opening up grazing lands as well and trying more conservation projects where we can, you know, save more of that water as well, so the government can touch it on the edges. But it’s just going to take three or four years for this market to turn around. And that’s just the way it is. Every rancher back home that’s trying to grow is hurt.”
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Contact: Payton Fuller
