What's causing beef prices to ‘beef up' in Kentucky?
WINCHESTER, Ky. (FOX 56) — As the weather warms up, your summer cookouts could be a little more expensive.
A February executive order by President Trump put tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China, three of the countries to which the United States exported nearly 10.5 billion worth of beef in 2024.
What's causing beef prices to 'beef up' in Kentucky?
AAA: Gas prices are up in Lexington, Kentucky
Kentucky lawmakers override most vetoes by Gov. Andy Beshear
'Canada is a partner that we [United States] import a lot of beef from, specifically live animals,' said Ben Pasley.
According to research from the USDA, beef and veal prices were 7.6% higher in February than they were a year ago. But it's not only tariffs that are beefing up prices.
'Between the tariffs, a shrinking cow herd, and raising prices just to continue to do business. I mean, prices only have one direction to go, and that's up,' Pasley said.
Pasley is the CEO of Mt. Folly Farm in Winchester.
He said he sees these issues firsthand as the farm's beef products are processed and distributed to local shops, like the Mercantile on Main and Full Circle Market in Winchester and Critchfield Meats Family Market on Southland Drive in Lexington.
He said the nation's cattle industry is at a 73-year low. That's a problem because there are fewer animals being processed into meat products for a market that demands them.
'It creates a lot of volatility in the pricing as we continue to fall further and further off of our inventory numbers; we're not able to replace those animals fast enough to then process those animals into consumable beef products,' Pasley told FOX 56.
Study shows which counties in Kentucky have the most excessive drinkers
Kentucky among top 10 states Americans want to move to: research
Lexington high schools ranked among Kentucky's best in 2025, according to Niche
So, what's the solution to bringing beef prices down? Well, much like the several contributing factors to this issue, there's not one simple answer.
'Competition's the only thing that can reduce prices. The only other thing that would reduce prices is if demand falters,' said Pasley. 'As a nation, it's going to be imperative that we find a free market solution so that competition can return to the marketplace.'
Pasley said Mt. Folly's prices are comparable to other stores in its mission to provide the best quality meat products the farm can offer.
Ultimately, he encouraged people to buy local, pointing out the benefits for their health, their community, and their wallet.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Los Angeles Times
29 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
US stocks drift and Chinese markets rise as trade talks start between the world's largest economies
NEW YORK — U.S. stocks drifted through a quiet Monday as the world's two largest economies began talks on trade that could help avoid a recession. The Standard & Poor's 500 edged up by 0.1% and is within 2.3% of its record, which was set in February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped by 1 point, which is well below 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite added 0.3%. Officials from the United States and China met in London to talk about a range of different disputes that are separating them. The hope is that they can eventually reach a deal that will lower each's punishing level of tariffs against the other, which are currently on pause, so that the flow of everything from tiny tech gadgets to enormous machinery can continue. Hopes that President Trump will lower his tariffs after reaching such trade deals with countries around the world have been among the main reasons the S&P 500 has rallied so furiously since dropping roughly 20% from its record two months ago. It's back above where it was when Trump shocked financial markets in April with his wide-ranging tariff announcement on what he called 'Liberation Day.' This may be the shortest sell-off following a shock of heightened volatility on record, according to Parag Thatte, Binky Chadha and other strategists at Deutsche Bank. Typically, stocks take around two months to bottom following a spike in volatility and then another four to five months to recover their losses. This time around, stocks have basically made a round trip in less than two months. But nothing is assured, of course, and that helped keep trading relatively quiet on Wall Street Monday. Some of the market's biggest moves came from the announcement of big buyout deals. Qualcomm rallied 4.1% after saying it agreed to buy Alphawave Semi in a deal valued at $2.4 billion. IonQ, meanwhile, rose 2.7% after the quantum computing and networking company said it agreed to purchase Oxford Ionics for nearly $1.08 billion. On the losing side of Wall Street was Warner Bros. Discovery, which flipped from a big early gain to a loss of 3% after saying it would split into two companies. One will get Warner Bros. Television, HBO Max and other studio brands, while the other will hold onto CNN, TNT Sports and other entertainment, sports and news television brands around the world, along with some digital products. Tesla recovered some of its sharp, recent drop. The electric vehicle company tumbled last week as Elon Musk's relationship with Trump broke apart, and it rose 4.6% Monday after flipping between gains and losses earlier in the day. The frayed relationship could end up damaging Musk's other companies that get contracts from the U.S. government, such as SpaceX. Rocket Lab, a space company that could pick up business at SpaceX's expense, rose 2.5%. All told, the S&P 500 rose 5.52 points to 6,005.88. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 1.11 to 42,761.76, and the Nasdaq composite rose 61.28 to 19,591.24. In stock markets abroad, indexes were modestly lower in Europe after rising across much of Asia. Chinese markets climbed even though the government reported that exports slowed in May, growing 4.8% from a year earlier after jumping more than 8% in April. China also reported that consumer prices fell 0.1% in May from a year earlier, marking the fourth consecutive month of deflation. Stocks rallied 1.6% in Hong Kong and rose 0.4% in Shanghai. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.48% from 4.51% late Friday. It fell after a survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that consumers' expectations for coming inflation eased a bit in May. That provides some relief for the Fed, which has been keeping its main interest rate steady as it waits to see how much Trump's tariffs will raise inflation and how much they will hurt the economy. A persistent increase in expectations for inflation among U.S. households could drive behavior that creates a vicious cycle that only worsens inflation. Economists expect a report coming on Wednesday to show inflation across the country accelerated last month to 2.5% from 2.3%. Choe writes for the Associated Press.
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Republicans focus on trans athletes in their early attacks against Jon Ossoff in Georgia
In the early stages of the campaign, Republicans seeking to unseat Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff in one of the key races of the 2026 midterm elections are leaning heavily into attacks over transgender athletes in women's sports. Two GOP-aligned groups launched ads on the issue in recent weeks. And GOP Rep. Buddy Carter hit the airwaves with an ad prodding Ossoff on the issue soon after launching his campaign. Republican candidates and campaigns have frequently leaned on culture war issues in recent years as a way to excite the base and frame Democrats as out of touch, particularly in red-leaning states. And they're even more emboldened after President Donald Trump bombarded then-Vice President Kamala Harris with an onslaught of ads that attacked her support for transgender people during the 2024 election. But while Democrats are gearing up for a difficult re-election fight for Ossoff in a state Trump won narrowly in 2024, they think the issue will be drowned out by voters' concerns about the economy, particularly Trump's handling of it. Even so, it's an issue for which Democrats lack a consensus about how to respond to GOP broadsides, as prominent members of the party grapple with whether to embrace protecting the transgender community as part of their values, deflect the question, or come out against including transgender athletes in women's sports. Ossoff is the only Democratic incumbent defending a seat in a state Trump won last year, making him far-and-away the top target for Senate Republicans. Still, some Republicans admit that Ossoff will be difficult to beat, particularly now that Gov. Brian Kemp decided not to seek the seat. The early Republican criticism of Ossoff points to the Democratic senator's vote on legislation in February that would make it a Title IX violation (jeopardizing federal education funding) for states to allow transgender women and girls to participate in female sports. The bill failed to get the 60 votes it needed to advance in the Senate. One Nation, the nonprofit aligned with Senate Republicans' main super PAC, has spent at least $400,000 airing an ad reminiscent of a key tagline from one of Trump's anti-Harris ads from last year: 'Man-to-man defense isn't woke enough for Ossoff, he's playing for they/them.' Carter's opening salvo of ads included a spot touting the congressman's MAGA credentials while a person purporting to be a transgender woman holds sports trophies and stands in front of a transgender pride flag talking about how Ossoff has been an ally to the community. Asked about the GOP criticism of that vote, Ossoff campaign communications director Ellie Dougherty told NBC News in a statement that 'American parents don't need federal bureaucrats confirming our children's genitalia,' a reference to how a state might enforce the mandate in the Republican bill. Scott Paradise, who managed Republican Herschel Walker's losing Senate campaign in 2022, told NBC News that Ossoff's first Senate run in 2020 provided a 'perfect storm' that allowed Ossoff to position himself as a 'centrist' by narrowing his focus to 'bread-and-butter issues.' 'If he's talking about the economy or he's talking about moments where he has stood with the right — whether it's Middle East, to the extent he has on immigration — it's easier for him to muddy the waters. But this is such a black-and-white issue in a center-right state' that allows Republicans to try to frame him as out of step, Paradise said. Polling broadly shows the American public doesn't support transgender women playing in female sports. Last month's NBC News Stay Tuned Poll, powered by SurveyMonkey found that 75% opposed it and 25% supported it. Other national polling has found similar trends. That's one reason why Trump's campaign focused heavily on the issue in ads, arguing that Harris was outside the mainstream and pointing to her past support for gender-affirming treatments for prison inmates. After the election, Democrats have disagreed over whether the party's position on transgender rights, particularly in women's sports, cost them electorally. Asked about the attacks last month during an interview on "Political Breakfast," a podcast hosted by Georgia's public radio affiliate, Ossoff said the big early spending is a signal to him that "demonstrates the national GOP understands the strength that I'll be bringing to this re-election campaign." The Democrat called Republicans, particularly GOP political consultants, "obsessed and preoccupied with this issue." Thinking ahead about "top of mind" issues for voters in 2026, Ossoff added, will it be "whether or not federal bureaucrats are investigating the sexual biology of adolescent athletes? I don't think so," he added. Amy Morton, a Democratic strategist in Georgia, elaborated that she believes the midterms will instead be a "referendum on the economy" and Trump's handling of it, emphasizing the Democratic attacks on the GOP's broad policy bill that's working its way through Congress. "They're going to continue to lean into that issue because they don't want to talk about the issues that are really impacting Georgians," she said, adding, "They made a strategic decision to wrap their arms around Donald Trump so there won't be a degree of separation between his failure as an executive and their failure." A Democratic strategist who worked on Sen. Raphael Warnock's successful re-election in Georgia in 2022 added that, like their former boss, Ossoff's high-profile elections have helped to define him in the state, making them skeptical that a GOP attempt to brand him as extreme will stick. They added that while Warnock's 2022 Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, leaned heavily on social issues during his unsuccessful bid, Kemp won comfortably with a very different message on the same ballot, showing how a campaign can focus on the issues it wants and leave others to the side. "You saw Brian Kemp run an extremely disciplined race on the economy. You were hard-pressed to get Kemp on the record about abortion in 2022 — the man was laser-focused on small businesses, jobs and the economy. That was the consistent message you heard out of Brian Kemp. You compare that to Herschel Walker and, you can do the math: 300,000 votes," the Democrat said. But the economy was also a top issue in the 2024 election, and Trump and the Republican Party still managed to turn their attacks on trans issues into a memorable tagline that stuck with some voters. That's why one national Republican strategist told NBC News that the attack isn't a "replacement" for a cogent economic argument, but "part of the equation." 'It's an issue that obviously had a massive impact in 2024. The Trump campaign's 'Harris is for they/them' ad is one of the greatest ads of our generation in that it's so simple and was so effective,' the strategist said. Ads about transgender participants in women's sports can run "on top of: Oh, he also voted to help ensure that illegal immigrants get government-paid health care and he voted against the Laken Riley amendment in 2024 before it was convenient," the strategist added. While the transgender sports attacks are drawing headlines, both sides have been running ads focused on spending in Washington, too. Democrats have attacked the GOP's policy bill working its way through Washington, and Republicans hit Ossoff for backing former President Joe Biden's signature spending bill in 2022. Tharon Johnson, a Georgia Democratic strategist who worked for Biden's 2020 campaign in the state, agreed that Republicans are "going to be hard-pressed to make Jon Ossoff into this radical," in part because of his work both in office and on the campaign trail. And while he believes the situation Harris found herself in last year isn't the same one Ossoff finds himself in now, he said Democrats can still draw a lesson from it: "Respond sooner, and more effectively." So far, Ossoff's response has been to stay focused on the economy and try to frame the debate as about local control. This article was originally published on
Yahoo
34 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump backs arrest of California governor amid LA protest strains
US President Donald Trump said Monday it would be "great" if California Governor Gavin Newsom was arrested, in an extraordinary threat as the two men sparred over protests in Los Angeles. Republican Trump, 78, deployed the National Guard in America's second city on Saturday after clashes erupted over immigration raids -- but he did not seek the Democratic governor's consent, the first time a US president has taken such an action in 60 years. As temperatures rose, Newsom, 57, then dared Trump's border czar Tom Homan over the weekend to arrest him, after Homan said the governor and LA Mayor Karen Bass could face federal charges of trying to impede immigration agents. "I would do it if I were Tom. I think it's great," Trump told reporters when asked if Homan should arrest Newsom, as the Republican president arrived on his Marine One helicopter at the White House. "Gavin likes the publicity, but I think it would be a great thing." Trump said Newsom, who has been widely tipped as a possible 2028 presidential candidate, had "done a terrible job" in curbing the Los Angeles clashes. "Look, I like Gavin Newsom, he's a nice guy -- but he's grossly incompetent, everybody knows," Trump said. Trump later said that "I don't want a civil war," but that "civil war would happen if you left it to people like him." Newsom has bitterly accused Trump of manufacturing the crisis for political gain, saying that local law authorities could have handled the protests without the National Guard. On Sunday, he blasted border chief Homan, telling MSNBC: "Come after me, arrest me, let's just get it over with, tough guy." The Democrat then branded Trump as "dictatorial" later Monday after the Trump administration deployed 700 active-duty Marines to Los Angeles. dk/jgc
