Turnkey Cattle Company is nestled in Colorado’s northeastern plains just outside of Greeley. The family-owned-and-operated ranch raises calves for local, all-natural beef.
“The Western way of life is – it's solid, it's family, it's all about community,” said Turnkey owner Chad Sanger as he looked out over one of his pastures. “I just think that's what the majority of this country is lacking.”
But Sanger said it’s increasingly tough for small operations like his to grow and thrive. Cattle and land are getting harder for ranchers to afford, especially when they’re competing with big corporate producers and foreign imports.
“There is no incentive to stay in this industry or start in this industry, because you can't buy the ground. If you buy the ground, it won't pencil,” Sanger said.
Sanger and other Colorado ranchers say some decisions from the White House are creating uncertainty for American beef producers, and it’s hurting their businesses.
Sanger said he supports President Trump and many of the administration’s policies. But he was frustrated by the president’s announcement in October that the US would quadruple the amount of beef it imports from Argentina.
“Why the producers and ranchers are so upset about that is, you're going to say that on national television, on the one payday that ranchers get a year,” Sanger said.
Ranchers and industry advocates said the decision to buy more Argentinian beef was particularly damaging because the announcement came during the one time of year when local ranchers sell their cattle.
“These ranchers, they take their calf crop to market and they get one check for the entire year,” said Erin Spaur, executive vice president of the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, the main trade group for the state’s ranchers. “When these market disruptions happen during this time, where all these calves are going to market, it really affects those producers on the ground.”
Spaur said the price of a calf dropped hundreds of dollars in the days following Trump’s announcement.
Then, last month, the Trump administration also announced it was reversing beef tariffs that it had imposed earlier in the year. That should be good news for American beef producers, but Spaur said the change came too late in the season to have a positive impact for ranchers anytime soon.
“There's a whole fluctuation of prices that have happened since these comments took place originally,” Spaur said. “We're seeing just kind of a shock wave through the market system. It's really bad timing.”
In a statement, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said the move to expand imports from Argentina is intended to lower beef prices for consumers.
“President Trump pledged to protect America’s ranchers and deliver economic relief for everyday Americans,” said Kelly. “The administration is accomplishing both by expanding beef imports from Argentina to lower consumer prices in the short term while rolling out a new US Department of Agriculture initiative that will support ranchers and expand cattle herd sizes to keep prices lower in the long term.”
The cattle population in the US is at a 75-year low, according to the US Department of Agriculture. The agency’s multi-step plan to grow domestic herds was announced in October, and it proposes to open new grazing land, streamline permitting and revise standards for compensating ranchers for natural disasters and predation.
Shrinking domestic cattle herds, combined with high demand for beef in the US, are driving many of the pressures ranchers are facing, including high prices and increasing foreign imports, said Colorado State University livestock researcher Nathan DeLay.
“We've had years of persistent drought that has forced ranchers to liquidate their herds. It's led to this really small herd size,” DeLay said. “We have a very constrained supply situation, which leads to higher prices.”
With fewer cows to go around, DeLay said ranchers often feed their animals for longer and grow them bigger, which costs them more money and resources.
Back at Turnkey Cattle Company on the eastern plains, Chad Sanger said he hopes American herds will rebound.
“The thing is, there's nothing that the government's going to do to change the price of beef until we get our herd built back up,” Sanger said.
If that doesn’t happen, Sanger said he’s worried local, family-run ranches like his would struggle to survive.
