Farm Action – DOJ expands beef investigation + USDA delays SARE funding
DOJ expands beef investigation + USDA delays SARE funding A news briefing from Farm Action’s policy team September 2, 2026 DOJ turns its beef investigation toward grocery retailers What happened: The Department of Justice is expanding its investigation into high consumer beef prices to include eight of the country’s largest grocery retailers: Kroger, Publix, Walmart, Albertsons, Aldi, Ahold Delhaize, Costco, and Amazon. On November 7, 2025, President Trump announced that he had directed the DOJ to investigate possible price manipulation and unfair practices in the beef industry. The DOJ confirmed its investigation in May 2026 into the four largest U.S. beef processors—JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods and National Beef—which collectively control roughly 85% of the U.S. beef processing market. The expanded investigation brings federal scrutiny to the retail side of the beef supply chain as the DOJ examines whether market concentration has contributed to high beef prices. Source: DOJ’s X post, Fox Business Why it matters: Expanding the investigation to retailers is important because concentration in the beef supply chain does not stop at the packing plant. A handful of dominant meatpackers buy cattle from farmers and ranchers, while a handful of dominant retailers buy beef from those processors and sell it to consumers. Market power at either bottleneck can determine who captures the value in between. Historically, large processors and large retailers have battled over that margin—including through litigation—while farmers and ranchers remain squeezed at the other end of the supply chain. More recently, major retailers including Walmart and Costco have moved further into meat processing themselves, blurring the line between retailer and processor. By expanding the investigation, the Trump administration is taking an important step toward examining market power across the beef supply chain. The question now is whether those investigations lead to action that creates more competition at both bottlenecks. Farmers and consumers will not benefit if market power is simply shifted from one concentrated segment of the supply chain to another. A genuinely competitive beef market requires addressing market power across the supply chain—from the companies buying cattle to those selling beef at the grocery store. USDA delays regenerative and sustainable agriculture funding What happened: USDA is withholding $50 million in regenerative and sustainable agriculture funding already appropriated by Congress for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program (SARE). This funding was also delayed for multiple months before eventually being released last year. If this year’s funding isn’t released by the end of the month, it will be returned to the US Treasury. The program has existed since 1988 with bipartisan backing, and provides support for farmers to test new methods of farming, including soil health projects, cover crops, and other regenerative initiatives. The funding delays are proving highly disruptive, creating planning difficulties and making it challenging to offer grants in the program that require more time to administer. Source: Politico Why it matters: Regenerative farming can have significant economic benefits for farmers, reducing dependence on expensive inputs like fertilizers and pesticides and improving soil and water quality—often improving a farm’s profitability. But farmers need reliable research about which practices actually work—and under what conditions. Despite its stated support for regenerative agriculture, the Trump administration is withholding funding for one of USDA’s longstanding programs for developing, testing, and disseminating regenerative farming practices. Promoting regenerative agriculture while disrupting the research and education infrastructure that helps farmers determine what works on their farms undermines the administration’s own stated goals. Thanks for reading the Farm Action Policy Feed! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support our work.
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