Flanked by beef producers from around the country, President Donald Trump signed Executive Orders on Friday and USDA made additional announcements supporting America’s ranchers and protecting our nation’s cattle herd.
The orders and announcements include efforts to allow on-farm meat processing, stricter enforcement of the Packers and Stockyards Act, protecting herds from gray wolves, and studying implementation of mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (MCOOL). Much of what is outlined in the EOs is in the form of studies and reports to be done, or requires additional action at the state or federal level, such as MCOOL, which was authorized in the 2002 and 2008 farm bills but was challenged by Canada and Mexico when it was finally implemented and ultimately ended in 2015. When President Trump was asked about implementing labeling, he said, “I understand Congress has something to do with that one, so we’re putting it in front of Congress right away. It should be no problem.”
Among those who joined President Trump in the White House for the announcement were American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall, R-CALF USA President Dave Hyde, ranchers Jim Mundorf, Casey Murph, and Amanda Radke, and former NFL Hall of Famer and first generation Wisconsin rancher Joe Thomas.
“I had the important opportunity today to speak with President Trump after the Oval Office event to let him know that the plan to increase beef imports is hurting farm families,” said Duvall in a statement after the Oval Office event. “I shared with him that we have witnessed significant price drops for cattle across the country. It has caused a setback to rebuilding the U.S. herd. We’ll continue to urge the administration to reverse the decision to increase imports before cattle prices fall further.”
President Trump was asked what countries were importing beef under the recently announced plan. “It’s coming from Argentina, it’s coming from Brazil, it’s coming from a couple of other places, we have our inspectors down, it’s very clean, it’s very good,” said Trump. “And we’re doing it in a very limited fashion because our ranchers can handle it. But our ranchers really needed a little bit of help. And our ranchers want the prices to be down too. They want to see the prices come down.”
“Since 1980, we’ve lost 600,000 ranchers in this country,” said Sec. Rollins. “We cannot continue freedom in America without those who feed and fuel us. And so today, this signal to our ranchers, the signal to rural America, but really the signal to the world is that American ranching and American farmers are back.”
Amanda Radke, a sixth generation rancher from South Dakota who was at the Oval Office event, said the president’s actions are a great start to restoring confidence for the nation’s cattle ranchers to retain heifers and rebuild the herd. “These actions aren’t an overnight fix to the broken system that American beef cattle producers have had to operate under for so many years, but it’s a historic step in the right direction that we should all celebrate,” Radke said on her social media accounts.
Listen to the President and others at the signing.
President Trump and beef producers 28:27