02/12/2026
BEEF MYTHS OF 2026
As many producers are well into calving season, it seems appropriate to share some insights into common myths surrounding beef production in 2026.
1. BEEF PRODUCERS ARE SWIMMING IN MONEY
This could not be further from the truth. We still drive a beat-to-hell pickup to feed livestock and keep diving through our metal scrap piles to construct the newest tools to help us get small things done easier and cheaper.
Yes, the last few years have been a blessing, but not a lottery win.
We are riding the current, unprecedented high to dig out of the last market hole and to prepare for the cyclical low soon to come. We are still working hard and doing our best to pay off debts, build what financial reserves we can, and hunker down for a long market slump that inevitably lies ahead.
We are not running off to the bank with $100 bills flying from our pockets.
Rather, we are preparing. We are bracing. We are taking a breath as we bolster for the next storm.
2. PRODUCERS SET THESE HIGH PRICES
No, the prices we receive, and the prices consumers pay are structured and benefited by the middle guys—the Packers.
If we set prices, would we set the lower ones also? If you are not focused on the beef industry news like we are, you have likely missed the many price-fixing settlements the companies that make up the Big Four (JBS, Cargill, National, and Tyson) have subtly managed in the past two years.
The deceit by the major packing companies and the media that helps to conceal it is reprehensible. The problem is it is very difficult to identify unless you know precisely what to look, or search, for each news cycle.
The national herd, which obviously helps influence the prices based on supply and demand, has met an all-time low since 1951.
Our capacity to produce finalized beef products for consumers has remained the same, but the herd to produce the meat itself is at its lowest in over 70 years.
Additionally, other markets, such as Canada, are rumored to be dealing with the same challenges as the United States. To fix their own national issue, they are, allegedly, buying supplemental beef from our industry and artificially adding it to their own to minimize their own hardships.
If actions like that are true, we are still producing the quantities of livestock, but we are supplying more than just our own nation’s needs, which leads to a longer recovery period for the U.S. beef herd.
The herd must be rebuilt before the prices lower. Again, supply and demand.
The packers influence this too, do not be fooled. Artificial market influences are real.
Until we have a surplus in supply, the demand will remain and continue to maintain those high store prices.
Unfortunately, the more consolidation that occurs, the more producers exit the industry, and the more we export beef from our nation, the longer it will take for the market to recover.
3. BY ATTACKING PACKERS, RANCHERS WANT THE FAILURE OF SMALL-TOWNS AND BLUE-COLLAR WORKERS
We demand fair competition, not destitution.
A century ago, our nation legislated and ruled against monopolies. Now we find ourselves in a semantically different circumstance with an oligopoly in the beef industry.
As an added insight, you can find the same issue in the poultry and hog industries.
Over 80% of beef production in the United States is controlled by the Big Four.
We do not want packing plants to close. We want the same or more production capabilities to exist with more holders to PROMOTE COMPETITION.
The fact that the Big Four control such a massive amount of the beef industry has permitted them to fix prices that harm producers, smaller packers, and consumers alike.
Recently, at least six settlements have occurred where Tyson, Cargill, and JBS have ensured their illegal actions have been illustrated to the world in only whispers in the daily news. These settlements, where price-fixing actions occurred from 2015 to 2021, ensured the corporations did not admit fault to the price fixing…but we all know.
A total of at least $114 million has been tallied, with more likely obscured from public view and/or still pending court cases.
Fines have been ridiculously low and are simply a cost of doing business for these moguls.
They work behind the scenes to look out for themselves while eroding an industry and taking as much cash out of consumers’ pockets as possible.
We do not want the families and workers who lost incomes from the recently shut down plants to suffer. No, we want them to work for corporations that operate fairly and compete appropriately.
Recent shutdowns are back-handed ways to control throughput and cause smaller supply, further legitimizing increased prices at the store.
For 2026, a year of continued high beef costs, the Big Four project hundreds of millions of dollars in ‘losses’.
These are not losses.
They are lower than expected profits.
Conversely, supposing they are actual losses, it would be the first time in decades to occur. Why? Because they have found ways to shortcut everyone in the food chain and use events like packing plant shutdowns to artificially influence the market they control.
4. LABELS CREATE TRANSPARENCY
Indeed, labels should be clear, but the reality is they are not.
The majority of labels in the beef industry are simply marketing tools, propaganda to get you to buy. Most labels are inaccurate, at the very least, and plain deceptive. Particularly because there is no legal enforcement.
Labels are important. Labels are in place to protect and inform consumers!
Most producers support labels, which is why MCOOL (Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling) has been a major issue that remains unresolved and continues to allow foreign beef to be marketed as a product of the USA.
When you see “U.S Beef” on a label, it does not mean that meat was raised and butchered in the United States. It simply means it was cut into consumable pieces in the United States…quite the loophole, isn’t it?
Yet it happens to be effective in selling the idea to average consumers that they are supporting U.S. ranchers when they buy “U.S. Beef” at the store. That is not the case at all.
The USDA announced in August 2024, “Animal-raising claims, such as ‘Raised Without Antibiotics,’ ‘Grass-Fed’ and ‘Free-Range,’ and environment-related claims, such as ‘Raised using Regenerative Agriculture Practices’ and ‘Climate-Friendly,’ are voluntary marketing claims that highlight certain aspects of how the source animals for meat and poultry products are raised or how the producer maintains or improves the land or otherwise implements environmentally sustainable practices.”
In other words, if your producer claims he or she is doing something, whether based on evidence or not, they can simply add it to the label.
Some common labels are outlined below to illustrate the points above.
ANTIBIOTIC FREE:
Definition – "No Antibiotics Added" or "Raised Without Antibiotics" are approved by the USDA based on documentation provided by the producer
Enforcement – Yes
It is quite literally a legal requisite. If antibiotics are used to aid an animal, there is an outlined recovery window to ensure it is metabolized and removed from consumable food.
GRASS-FED:
Definition – No standardized label definition
Enforcement – None, limited oversight
All cattle are grass fed at some point in their life; you need to know whether it is FINISHED with grass or grain.
NATURALLY RAISED:
Definition – ‘Minimally processed’ which means it contains no artificial ingredients
Enforcement – None
It is a domestic livestock animal. Naturally raised is not equivalent to living freely in the wild like game.
PASTURE RAISED
Definition – None
Enforcement – None
While usually understood to mean the livestock spent 90% or more of its life with free access to pastures, it is not a defined nor enforceable standard. This is often closely related to the ‘Grass-fed’ label.
ORGANIC:
Definition – Products labeled "organic" must meet specified standards—including 100% organic feed, no antibiotics or hormones, and access to pasture. Certified by the USDA.
Enforcement – Yes
Just as products like this can be organic without certification, products certified to be organic can easily be falsified through documentation and sly producers. Be careful who you deal with.
VERBALLY ABUSED:
Definition – Yelled at, cussed upon, otherwise spoken to in an unwanted manner; not usually a selling point
Enforcement – Always
Every damn one…if you have ever worked with cattle, you would understand.
BONUS CONSIDERATION:
We are not sitting at home scheming of ways to screw the consumer. We are in a position that is favorable from an economic situation that has plummeted due to the rapid decline of producers year after year.
We do not want to alienate our customers and drive them toward other meat products.
The middlemen are growing fast as they begin to pick up the production losses from the departure of the little guys.
Those of us smaller producers still around are surviving by trying to leverage these good years.
The question is for those uninformed or uneducated to these issues. More importantly, aimed at those who ignored us when we struggled more than ever five and six years ago: When we watched as herds had to be liquidated at rock bottom prices due to drought and low-set Packer bids were pushed to their extremes.
Where were you then? Where were the complaints about us when we were so quickly dying?
Further, where are you now? Where will you be in a few years when this cycle starts again?
Right now, the bleeding has stopped, but if you give it another few years the hemorrhaging will start anew.
It is doubtful you will be complaining about us then as we fade away. That is when more consolidation will continue and the bigger problem of food control will only grow in concern.
Mark these words: Beef prices at the store will not go down much from here. Producers will start to receive low bids again, but consumers will still pay sky high prices as Packers exploit everyone around them.
Remember these days; we tried warning you.
It is not the everyday producer that is the problem; never has been.
It is the corporate middleman using his business acumen and cutthroat skills to gut American agriculture and rip money from the pockets of the public.
Authored By: The Hashknife Kid
Photo Credit: Lainey Ann Photography at MT Farm Frames
