The Trump administration has announced a new plan aimed at lowering beef prices in the grocery stores, but the plan will negatively impact the farm economy. John Newton, the vice president of public policy and economic analysis at the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the plan calls for importing a large volume of foreign beef.

"Over the next 90 days, he plans to allow imports of up to 300,000 metric tons of beef into the U.S. market, with the goal of trying to lower ground beef prices," Newton said. "Three hundred thousand metric tons of beef is equivalent to over 600 million pounds of beef, so this is a very big deal for farmers and the cattle industry."

Newton said importing such a significant volume will negatively impact U.S. cattle ranchers.

"We've already seen cattle prices fall about 15 percent over the last two months. Prices were down on this news. It can't come at a worse time for ranchers as the herd is at a 50-year low, and they're trying to rebuild the herd," Newton said. "And this takes away any economic incentives to invest and rebuild the herd when we're trying to lower cattle and beef prices."

American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall commented on President Trump’s plan.

“Farmers and ranchers are extremely disappointed to learn that President Trump plans to flood the American market with hundreds of millions of pounds of foreign-raised beef. The U.S. is already importing beef at record levels. This decision would be an unprecedented move and would translate to nearly an additional 60% increase in imports over the next 90 days," Duvall said. "For almost a year now, we’ve been advising the administration that America’s ranchers are working to rebuild beef herds that had to be sold off due to drought. Despite high beef prices in grocery stores, prices paid to farmers and ranchers for their cattle have fallen sharply over the past two months, and beef packing plants are shutting down across the U.S. Further undercutting a fragile recovery by swamping markets with foreign products and attempting to manipulate prices threatens to wipe out any progress that has been made."

“We appreciate the president’s goal of reducing grocery costs, but short-term measures could have long-term negative effects for consumers and for ranchers who are making decisions on whether to retain or expand their herd. Growing dependence on foreign-grown food could ultimately lead to even higher grocery costs and reliance on other nations for our food security. We urge the president to strongly reconsider his plan,” Duvall added.

Newton said the market was already providing incentives for producers to begin rebuilding their herds, but that doing so will take time.

"We start to see farmers start to retain heifers so that we can begin to rebuild the herd," Newton said. "The cattle cycle is a 10-year cycle. It takes years and years and years to rebuild the herd, but we need to make sure that any plans to import beef don't undermine the ranchers and the farmers that are going to rebuild our herd."

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