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Beef Prices Down As Summer Grilling Heats Up

Harvest Public Media

Expansion in the country’s beef cattle herd is bringing cheaper meat prices to the grocery store just in time for the summer grilling season.

Lower prices for feed, falling land prices and increased consumer demand for meat over the past three years spurred the nation’s beef producers to raise more cattle. But Iowa State University economist Lee Schulz says even so, prices dropped a bit quicker than expected.

"What many of us thought would be a much longer, prolonged process to get to this new price level, really occurred in the last three months of 2015," Schulz says.

Now ground beef is about 30 cents a pound cheaper than it was a year ago.

Amy Mayer is a reporter based in Ames. She covers agriculture and is part of the Harvest Public Media collaboration. Amy worked as an independent producer for many years and also previously had stints as weekend news host and reporter at WFCR in Amherst, Massachusetts and as a reporter and host/producer of a weekly call-in health show at KUAC in Fairbanks, Alaska. Amy’s work has earned awards from SPJ, the Alaska Press Club and the Massachusetts/Rhode Island AP. Her stories have aired on NPR news programs such as Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition and on Only A Game, Marketplace and Living on Earth. She produced the 2011 documentary Peace Corps Voices, which aired in over 160 communities across the country and has written for The New York Times, Boston Globe, Real Simple and other print outlets. Amy served on the board of directors of the Association of Independents in Radio from 2008-2015.