Are Anti-Importers Ignoring the Lean Ground Problem?

 By Jennifer Hill

The call for greater limits on imported beef found new traction in the early days of the pandemic as consumers were faced with empty shelves and producers found themselves with nowhere to market cattle. Encouraged by the massive income discrepancy between ranchers and packers, the call has grown. But are the anti-importers ignoring the lean ground problem in the United States, and will it come back to bite us?

 Lean ground is the backbone of the American fast food industry, and we simply don’t produce enough of it. American beef is the best in the world. We are so good that we grade too well to produce all of the ground we need. That's why, according to Oklahoma State University agricultural economist Derrell Peel, 70-75% of imported beef is lean ground. Peel points out that without the imported lean we would need to double our domestic cow slaughter to meet current demand.

 If we were forced to devote more of our US herd to ground we'd see a major devaluing of our top-notch cattle, who have been bred to produce a high grading product. Yes, we could take some of the roast cuts with smaller demand and grind them back, but feeding out cattle to reach high quality just to watch so much ground into hamburger does not seem like an efficient industry model. Of course we could try and solve the issue by adding in more highly processed fat trimmings, but that hasn’t played well with consumers. Remember the “pink slime” scandal in 2012? When ABC began reporting on a topic they clearly didn’t understand (ultra-low fat beef trimmings), Beef Products Inc’s ability to market their product came to a screeching halt. Eventually ABC had to apologize for their fear mongering and misinformation and settled out of court with BPI, but consumer trust was already damaged.

 Cutting off imports will undoubtedly lead to a price increase for consumers, especially in ground beef. How many McDonald’s customers do you think are likely to pay $15 for a Big Mac, and how many of them will then turn to alternative products? Are we inadvertently giving the McPlant a giant boost?

 This does not come with a lack of acknowledgment about safety concerns surrounding imported beef products. We know that animals processed in other countries, especially South America and Africa are often not held to the same safety standards. In a free economy the liability for bringing tainted meat into the country would land squarely on the importer, and consumers are paying attention. This is where the importance of labeling comes in. Sorry, but MCOOL is a non-starter. It’s highly unlikely that the World Trade Organization is ever going to allow mandatory labeling. But voluntary labeling programs can add real value to your cattle. Programs like the one Sustainable Beef LLC is planning to initiate allow cattle to be tracked from birth to processing and labeled as an American product. Of course this means the rancher will have to take on the responsibility of utilizing EID tags, and marketing their cattle into such programs. But boy that sounds better than expecting the government to actually help us.

We can’t always have our cake and eat it too. We want high live cattle prices that provide a living wage for those of us who raise them, but we also need our final end product, beef, to be economically accessible to our consumers. Cutting off all imports isn’t going to get us there, nor will a government rescue package.