With the Senate expected to release its farm bill proposal this month, R-CALF USA sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry outlining its recommendations for the 2026 Farm Bill. In its letter, the group warns that decades of consolidation have left U.S. cattle and sheep producers in crisis and the country increasingly reliant on foreign meat.
The letter, addressed to Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee Chair John Boozman (R-Ark.) and Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), states that past farm bills have been shaped by meat industry lobbyists, allowing a handful of large meatpackers to dominate markets that determine the livelihoods of America’s independent cattle and sheep farmers and ranchers.
According to R-CALF USA, the consequences have been severe: the loss of more than half of America’s beef cattle producers, more than 60% of full-time sheep producers, a 25% decline in the beef cow herd, a 60% drop in sheep inventory and the disappearance of 77% of family-scale feedlots. Over the same period, concentration in the fed cattle market climbed from 36% to more than 80% among the four largest firms.
The group says these trends have pushed the U.S. toward a growing dependence on foreign meat. Approximately 22% of beef available in the U.S. market, along with more than 70% of lamb, is imported – a shift the group attributes to long-term contraction in domestic production.
R-CALF USA outlined four specific recommendations for the 2026 Farm Bill:
1.) Reinstate mandatory country-of-origin labeling (MCOOL) for beef by including the American Beef Labeling Act of 2025 (S. 421), which would reinstate country-of-origin labeling at retail. Imported beef currently receives the same U.S. inspection shield as domestic beef, and consumers associate the U.S. inspection shield with domestic origin, even though it does not indicate origin. This allows meatpackers to displace domestic beef with lower-cost foreign beef while simultaneously pricing the lower-cost foreign beef based on consumers’ perceived value of domestic beef. Meatpackers who import foreign beef know its origin, but they do not disclose the origin to consumers.
2.) Restore competition as the price determinant in the fed cattle market by prohibiting cattle procurement contracts that use formula pricing. Formula pricing links the price paid for contracted cattle to prices reported in the cash market, which has declined to a small share of total transactions. Because formula prices depend on that market, lowering the cash-market price reduces the price of both contracted cattle and cattle sold in the cash market. Meatpackers can reduce their participation in the cash market by slaughtering contracted cattle rather than bidding for cattle in the cash market, thereby lowering the cash-market price, which then lowers their contract cattle price. The recommendation also calls for banning packer ownership, feeding or control of livestock for more than 14 days before slaughter.
3.) Prevent further “chickenization” of the cattle and sheep industries by prohibiting additional horizontal or vertical integration in the cattle, beef, sheep and lamb supply chains. “Chickenization” refers to an industry shift toward horizontal consolidation by a few dominant firms, followed by the disappearance of competitive cash markets in favor of contracts, and finally vertical integration that allows companies to control the supply chain from birth to plate. The term is derived from the poultry industry’s highly integrated production model, which the group says later spread to the hog sector and contributed to the mass exodus of hog farmers. The 1981 Farm Bill served approximately 1.3 million beef cattle producers, 667,000 hog farmers and 17,341 full-time sheep producers. Since then, the number of hog farmers has fallen by more than 91%, the number of beef cattle producers has dropped by more than half, and the number of full-time sheep producers has declined by more than 60%. Over the same period, four firms now control roughly 81% of the fed-cattle market, and fewer than 18% of fed cattle were sold in the cash market in 2025. The proposal further calls for unwinding existing integrations to reduce concentration already present in the cattle and sheep industries.
4.) End the mandatory Beef Checkoff Program, which was created in the 1985 Farm Bill and collects $1 per head of cattle sold, generating about $80 million annually. Checkoff funds are used by lobbying groups that engage in activities outside the program’s intended scope, giving those organizations greater influence over policy than the producers who are required to fund it – often to those producers’ detriment. The Opportunities for Fairness in Farming Act of 2025 (S. 1848) would increase transparency, require audits, prohibit conflicts of interest and bar Checkoff recipients from engaging in political advocacy. In addition, the recommendation would allow Checkoff funds to promote beef exclusively born, raised and slaughtered in the United States.
The letter also urges the reversal of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s electronic identification (EID) rule for cattle, saying it does not achieve the results claimed by the agency because it puts the financial burden solely on producers to use EID eartags but does not provide for or require anyone in the supply chain to electronically read those tags. The group estimates the short-term cost to producers for reading those eartags electronically is more than $566 million.
R-CALF USA concludes by urging the Senate Agriculture Committee to incorporate all of its recommendations in the 2026 Farm Bill, stating: “Together, these recommendations constitute a meaningful reset of the legal and regulatory framework that has disadvantaged America’s independent cattle and sheep producers for decades, causing their industries to contract to levels that now threaten national security.”
