President Donald Trump is moving to give ranchers a new way around the powerful meatpacking companies that stand between their cattle and the grocery-store shelf, following backlash in farm country over his decision to allow more foreign beef imports.

Trump said Friday that he was authorizing legal documents to be drafted giving farmers and ranchers "the right to process their own food," framing the move as an effort to break what he called a "nasty monopoly" in the meat industry.

The announcement followed pushback from cattle producers and some Republicans against Trump's plan to temporarily allow tariff-free imports of up to 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef, a step intended to relieve consumers facing high prices at the meat counter.

For ranchers, however, the fight is not only about imports. It is also about who controls the path from pasture to plate.

Four companies — Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS USA and National Beef Packing Co. — control roughly 85% of the country's meat-processing capacity. Ranchers have long argued that this concentration leaves them with too few buyers for their cattle and forces smaller producers to rely on distant, federally inspected slaughter facilities to bring beef to market. Complaints about meatpacker concentration are not new: ranchers have pressed for stronger enforcement under the century-old Packers and Stockyards Act for decades, and Congress has repeatedly debated — without passing — measures to require processors to buy a larger share of cattle on the open cash market.

Under current law, ranchers may slaughter and process animals for their own use, but meat intended for sale generally must be processed in facilities meeting federal food-safety and inspection requirements. Federal law already allows meat from state-inspected facilities in a majority of states to be shipped across state lines if the state program meets federal equivalency standards, though ranchers say capacity and compliance hurdles limit the practical benefit. Trump has not released the legal details of his proposal, and it remains unclear how far an executive action could go toward changing those rules.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the administration would begin unveiling beef-processing actions on Monday, including steps to reduce red tape, support smaller processors and expand ranchers' ability to sell meat across state lines.

The political pressure comes as beef prices remain elevated and the U.S. cattle herd sits at its smallest level in roughly 75 years. Drought, high costs and years of herd liquidation have reduced domestic supply, while rebuilding the herd can take years. That reality has put Trump in a difficult position: finding a way to ease grocery bills without further undercutting the ranchers who produce the country's beef.

Still, the proposal gives him a new way to address the affordability challenge by shifting the focus from imported beef to the meatpacking giants that ranchers say are driving a wedge between what producers earn and what consumers pay.

Source: Fox Business