USDA plan to rebuild beef herd will not include producer payments, says farm secretary

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is developing a plan to revitalize the decimated U.S. beef herd, but will not offer payments to producers, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Thursday. 

The U.S. cattle inventory is the lowest since 1951, according to government data, shrunk by years-long drought that dried up pasture land. Ranchers have slowly begun to rebuild the herd, but beef prices are at record highs. 

The USDA is working on short- and long-term solutions to the problem and will provide more details in mid-October, Rollins said at the Ag Outlook Forum in Kansas City, Missouri.

"We have no current plans to offer any payment to beef producers. We see how the government getting involved can completely distort the markets. And so currently there will be no plan, no plan is even under consideration, to insert ourselves through payments into the beef cattle industry."

Instead, the plans will focus on opening up more working lands and expanding risk-mitigation tools, Rollins said.