The price of western beef
The price of western beef
- Sat, Jun 6 2026 at 9:01 AM
Issue 60 | June 2026
Despite its high prices and health and climate concerns, beef is making a comeback. Its recent popularity has been fueled by policy decisions on subjects like dietary guidelines, international trade, and our public lands.
Importing the U.S. Appetite for Beef
Earlier this year the Trump administration boasted it would quadruple Argentinian beef imports by executive order, overriding the lack of market demand. As the Center’s Stephanie Feldstein noted in a recent issue of Grist, it’s hard to fathom “how Argentina can meet its climate commitments by expanding its beef production for the United States. By importing Argentina’s beef to the U.S., this administration is exporting its disregard for the climate crisis.”
The reality is that beef has a big impact on the planet no matter where it’s grown. Whether it’s grass fed, regenerative, or factory farmed in the United States or elsewhere, beef leads all foods in climate impacts. Cattle production in the United States is a key threat to many vulnerable species of wildlife, especially in the arid West. (Read more about our position on cattle grazing.)
To distract the domestic U.S. beef industry from the whopping purchase of Argentinian beef, the administration released a new executive order called the Farmer and Rancher Freedom Framework. Administration officials call it “a plan to protect property rights and reverse agricultural lawfare.”
For years the beef industry has been held in check through laws like the Endangered Species Act and National Environmental Policy Act. The “lawfare” plot is the Project 2025 of cattle production, aiming to unravel any semblance of industry accountability. It’s a repackaging of efforts to roll back environmental protections.
The Price of Grazing Cattle
It’s in this context that President Donald Trump’s new Grazing Action Plan is expanding commercial grazing on public lands by cutting environmental regulations and opening 24 million acres to cattle grazing. In April the Center announced our intent to sue the Trump administration over this plan, which would harm imperiled wildlife on public lands across the American West, including iconic landscapes.
The plan would open the western portion of Grand Canyon National Park to grazing, where a stretch of the Colorado River provides habitat for endangered razorback suckers. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is also targeting sensitive landscapes in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado, and the Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona.
The attack on public lands continues — even though the monthly fee ranchers pay to rent federal lands for private livestock grazing is only $1.69 per cow/calf pair (or five sheep) per month. The fee was recently raised from $1.35 per month. This meager bump is the largest increase allowed by law. It’s still less than the price of a cup of coffee where many people live. In fact you’d be hard-pressed to find a burger patty at that price.
Public-lands ranchers benefit from a welfare system just for them, funded by taxpayer subsidies. A special ProPublica report this spring showed that grazing on public lands is about 93% cheaper than grazing on private lands. It’s a good deal for the cattle industry but not for our plates. Public-lands grazing provides less than 2% of the American beef supply.
Yet it degrades and destroys critical habitat that wild species like southwestern willow flycatchers need to survive. Half of the 2,400 stream miles of endangered species habitat surveyed by the Center since 2017 shows significant damage from livestock.
In April the Center also sent a notice to the BLM and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of our intent to sue the agencies for habitually allowing unlawful cattle grazing to damage 70 miles of river designated as critical habitat for endangered birds, fishes, and other species in southeastern Arizona along the Gila River.
The cost of grazing public lands is high for the American taxpayer, but it’s higher still for endangered species that are on the edge of extinction. Degrading federal lands comes at the great detriment of wild waterways and species of wolves, bears, frogs, and birds.
Stay tuned. In a future issue we’ll talk about how the Trump administration is rolling back “the public lands rule” and working with the state of Montana to give native bison the boot in favor of more public-lands cattle grazing.
How You Can Help
Three more important actions:
- It’s simple: Eat less beef.
- Use our data from A Recipe for Climate Disaster: When you see recipes or articles that don’t address beef’s environmental impacts, submit a letter to the editor or politely email the reporter.
- Learn more about grazing at our Grazing Facts website.
For the wild,
Jennifer Molidor
Senior Food Campaigner
Population and Sustainability Program
Center for Biological Diversity
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