State's Largest General Farm Organization Pushing Back Against Beef Import Plan

Friday, September 4th, 2026 -- 8:00 AM

(Trevor Hook, Wisconsin Public Radio) The largest general farm organization in Wisconsin is pushing back on a plan from the President to import hundreds of thousands of tons of beef, telling WPR the move would harm Wisconsin farmers.

According to Trevor Hook with the Wisconsin Public Radio, the President signed a plan last week to import up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef product and sell it at 25 percent under current market value.

This comes as the price of ground beef rose to a near-record $6.89 per pound in July, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. National agriculture groups have pushed back on the proposal, with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association writing in a statement posted on X that the plan is “undercutting American Farmers.”

The Wisconsin Farm Bureau is pushing back on the plan as well. Farm Bureau president Brad Olson told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today” the move would negatively affect the state’s cattle industry in ways that differ from other beef-producing states.

“We have a lot of dairy cattle being bred to beef bulls … It’s also affecting the dairy herds significantly as well,” Olson said. “(We’re) concerned about the drop in beef prices, the drop in bull-calf replacements. We’re on quite a stretch of downturn of all agriculture markets here. Beef has been the one bright spot in agriculture over the last few months.”

An Associated Press-NORC poll released last month found 8 in 10 adults changed their grocery shopping habits due to high prices, and 41 percent said they were worried about being able to afford groceries for the next few months.

Olson argued any short-term price adjustments from the import deal wouldn’t address rising costs on the farm. “From the dairy side of things, right now we’re looking at milk prices that haven’t been seen since probably the mid to early 1990s,” Olson said. “It’s hard to live on 2026 expenses when you’re getting the income that you’ve seen 20, 25 years ago.”

In announcing the plan to import hundreds of thousands of tons of beef, the President wrote on Truth Social that the plan was meant to lower the price of ground beef for consumers.

Brenda Boetel, professor and department chair of agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, told WPR the plan to sell ground beef at 25 percent under market price doesn’t mean consumers will see that reduced price at the grocery store.

“That beef that we’re bringing in is lean beef trims … then we’re going to have to basically dilute it with current U.S. (beef), so maybe some fattier domestic beef, things like that,” Boetel said. “It’ll probably go to maybe school lunch programs, universities or fast food stores. That’s typically the location where that type of beef would go.”

Boetel said the short-term import plan ignores the increased input costs of fertilizer, diesel and corn prices and could run the risk of prolonging the time needed to grow America’s cattle herd up from record-low levels.

“If we, at this time of year … put this massive volatility into the market that drops all these cattle prices down significantly. That’s a nice short term from the consumer’s perspective, right? However, we’ve just kind of stabbed ourselves in the foot here for a bit,” Boetel said. “That disincentivizes any growing of the herd, which means it’s even further down the road before we can produce enough beef for ourselves.”

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