Attorney General Ken Paxton claims major companies could be manipulating the beef market to underpay ranchers.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into the beef industry over potential anticompetitive conduct among the nation’s largest meatpackers, joining a federal probe to protect the beef market, he announced May 15.
“Texans deserve fairly priced beef and our state’s cattle ranchers deserve to be paid fairly for their hard work,” Paxton said in a statement. “If major meatpackers manipulated the market to underpay ranchers while forcing families to pay higher prices at the grocery store, we will hold them accountable.”
Paxton said his office plans to investigate any violations of antitrust law to protect fair competition, ranchers, and the state’s consumers.
Over the past four decades, weak antitrust enforcement and a wave of corporate mergers have allowed monopolies to gain a stranglehold on the industry, according to the nonpartisan anti-monopoly organization Farm Action.
Four companies—JBS S.A.; Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc.; Cargill, Inc.; and National Beef Packing Company—control over 85 percent of the nation’s beef processing market.
Paxton, citing news reports, alleged that the firms “may have used their dominance” over the market to decrease the prices they pay to cattle ranchers while also driving up beef prices for consumers. He encouraged industry participants with concerns about antitrust violations to contact his office.
The Epoch Times reached out to the companies for comment.
Texas remains the top state for beef producers, though the number of cattle has dropped in recent years. The state has an estimated 4 million head of beef cows, about 300,000 fewer than counted in 2022, according to the U.S. Cattle Report.
Retail beef prices continue to climb as nearly every category sets new records. In April, the overall retail beef price increased from $8.93 per pound in March to a record $9.28 per pound in April—up $0.35 in one month, according to the cattle report.
Over 140,000 farms—or 7 percent of farms in the United States—closed between 2017 and 2022, according to the American Farm Bureau.
“The results are devastating,” Farm Action reported in September 2025. “While beef prices at the grocery store climbed in recent years, cattle ranchers saw their share of every dollar shrink.”
Ranchers now get less than 30 cents of every retail beef dollar, which is a historic low, while meatpacker profits have soared, Farm Action reported.
