Cory Hart, a lifelong beef farmer from Chaseley, North Dakota, has seen more of his fellow ranchers leave or retire from the business in the past two decades than at any time before, with no new producers entering the business.
Hart, 63, who operates a finishing feedlot and raises his own herd alongside his two sons, said the volatility of the beef industry, from high retail beef prices to historically low cattle inventory, makes it an unpredictable business.
One of the biggest changes in recent years is that most of his livestock is being bought by three of the four major meatpackers in the country, who combined control roughly four-fifths of U.S. beef production.
“We’re an independent feedlot, so you’re at the mercy of the big guys,” he said.
But Hart was hopeful last year when President Trump directed the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the nation’s largest meatpacking companies, whom he accused of collusion and price-fixing.
“Packers need to cover expenses, but excessive profits are harmful to American producers and consumers,” Hart said.
Trump’s call for an investigation came as his administration faced mounting pressure over the rising cost of beef and other grocery staples, despite campaign promises to lower food prices.
But while the federal government has long investigated corporate monopolies and forced companies to break up, including in the energy, telecommunications and technology sectors, its history of investigating the nation’s consolidated meat industry has rarely led to significant changes, according to legal and agricultural experts.
And in the months before Trump’s call for an investigation, his administration had already slashed budgets and staffing for the offices responsible for protecting farmers and consumers against consolidated power in the agriculture sector, according to an Investigate Midwest analysis.
Past investigations and charges have often resulted only in fines and settlements, which companies see as the cost of doing business, said Joe Maxwell, chief strategy officer for Farm Action, a nonpartisan watchdog organization advocating for accountability from government and corporate agriculture.
“There was a day in America where the actors themselves were also held accountable,” Maxwell said. “Decision makers (need) to feel the hand of the government coming around their necks.”
Today, four companies control 85% of the nation’s beef supply: Cargill, JBS, Tyson Foods and National Beef.
These companies have outsized power compared to domestic producers and smaller processors, often brokering deals with major retailers to serve as primary providers of protein for national and international grocery stores. Many also receive major federal subsidies to supply meat for school meal programs and Department of Defense food purchasing.
Trump called out “foreign-owned” companies in his announcement of the ongoing meatpacking investigation, a reference to JBS, the world’s largest meat company, which is Brazilian-owned and headquartered, and a dominant player in U.S. beef. Trump’s inaugural PAC accepted $5 million from the major poultry company Pilgrim’s Pride, a subsidiary of JBS.
Meat companies have lobbied and donated millions of dollars to elected officials and presidential candidates for decades, carving out their business interests at the highest levels of government, from Trump’s JBS connection to Bill Clinton’s home-state affinity for Tyson Foods.
The federal government has attempted to mitigate the risks of owning small meatpacking and processing companies, but agriculture groups and processors have called the efforts a band-aid approach.
“We need to beef up the resources of those divisions in charge of investigations, give them tools and staffing they need to take on multi-billion dollar global companies,” Maxwell said. “Otherwise this president is not serious about taking on monopoly power and stopping the price gouging that consumers are seeing in the grocery store.”
Dulling the blade
Before Trump called for an investigation into giant meat companies, his administration often worked to reverse policies aimed at curbing agricultural consolidation.
During the first Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture erased a slew of proposals and rule changes to protect poultry and pork producers from deceptive contracts.
These rule changes were written by the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration — or GIPSA— which, at the time, enforced the landmark Packers and Stockyards Act.
The legislation was crafted in 1921 to prevent unfair markets and contracts for cattle producers at the height of the nation’s booming meatpacking sector in the early 20th century. The industry’s poor working conditions and consolidated power were showcased in Upton Sinclair’s 1906 “The Jungle.” A century later, livestock producers and meatpacking workers are facing similar realities.
GIPSA was merged into the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Agency in 2017, and since then, the Packers and Stockyards Division has handled livestock cases.
While the Packers and Stockyards Division had a stagnant budget under the first Trump administration, the department saw budget growth under the Biden administration.
But since Trump took office again last year, the division has seen a 22% decrease in its annual budget, from $31 million to $24 million. This annual budget is nearly the same as what the division was allotted during Trump’s first term.
Recent cuts are largely due to sweeping decisions made at the USDA under the direction of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which had an outsized influence on the department during the first months of the new administration.
In a statement, the USDA told Investigate Midwest that the division has experienced staff losses in recent years, but did not provide insight into why these staff or budget cuts have occurred.
“Despite these challenges, the Division remains committed to fulfilling its mission, with approximately 67 employees currently working diligently to carry out its responsibilities and ensure fair and competitive markets,” the statement said.
The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Enforcement office is also at a low for staffing, which could affect the newly launched investigation into meatpacking companies, as well as other industries, including airlines, technologies and healthcare.
The DOJ antitrust office has seen a 20% decrease in staff levels during Trump’s second term. The number of attorneys working at the division is currently nearing pre-COVID levels, at just over 400 attorneys.
With a history of past investigations that haven’t moved the needle in the industry, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michael Kades said the agencies have to get creative.
“You have the Packers and Stockyards Act, which the USDA and the DOJ can jointly enforce. Within the two agencies, a common view is that courts have made it too hard to enforce the statute, and I don’t think that’s right,” Kades said. “If someone wants to be aggressive and creative, they can push back on it, something we did successfully in the Biden administration.”
Kades worked under the Biden administration in the DOJ’s antitrust office. He said that agencies have been too willing to accept claims made by packing companies that everything they do promotes efficiency, while disregarding the upstream effects on small and independent ranches and feedlots.
“If someone investigates the industry with this in mind, you may well get a different result, but if they’re just going to do the same thing they’ve done in the past, they’re going to come to the same conclusion,” he said.
Hart, the North Dakota cattle rancher, said a novel approach would be if the DOJ expanded its investigation into wholesalers, grocery stores and retailers when analyzing the wide gap between retail prices and the price ranchers are paid for their cattle.
In February, DOJ Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater resigned, sparking concern among antitrust advocates that the department would now be ill-equipped to go after major corporate consolidation, a promise made throughout the Trump campaign.
Slater’s departure came just before a major settlement was announced between the department and ticketing entertainment companies Ticketmaster and LiveNation for concerns of antitrust behavior and price-gouging, with some corporate accountability groups calling for congressional investigations into “pay-to-play” actions within the department.
The DOJ’s ability to coordinate with state attorneys general offices has also been weakened.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins quietly dismantled a federal-state antitrust partnership in September 2025, according to the investigative policy newsroom The Capital Forum. The program, launched in 2023, included $15 million to support state-led investigations into consolidation across the food supply chain.
“Ending the partnership with state AGs threatens competition and is contrary to President Trump’s stated goals of lowering food prices, helping struggling independent farmers, and promoting national security,” the Monopoly Buster Caucus, a group of congressional members focused on consolidated power, wrote to the USDA in a Dec. 18, 2025, letter.
In a statement, USDA said it ended the program to focus on its original objectives that directly advance its core mission.
“Redirecting USDA’s limited competition resources allows us to strengthen programs that have the greatest impact for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities, meet USDA’s goals, and ensure financial assistance effectively implements agency priorities. USDA remains committed to protecting American farmers,” the statement said.
The DOJ declined to comment for this story, citing the ongoing investigation.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a bill in early March to lower grocery prices and break up meat monopolies. The bill would require meatpackers to source cattle from more independent ranchers and would allow only large packers to sell one type of protein.
“The pernicious stranglehold of the meatpacking monopoly has weakened our supply chains and price-gouged consumers at the grocery store,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in a statement announcing the bill.
Industry groups believe the legislation would decimate the industry.
“This proposal is absurd,” said Meat Institute President and CEO Julie Anna Potts in a statement.
“Schumer’s bill and other efforts to villainize meat packers is simply reckless election year pandering that threatens to damage a crucial industry at the center of every American meal.”
The past and future of policing meat
Just before the Trump administration announced its latest investigation, it closed a similar investigation without taking any action.
National Beef, one of the four largest beef firms in the country, and Tyson Foods, a major beef packer and the largest chicken processing company, described how both were subject to a DOJ investigation that ended in September 2025, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
“(National Beef) has been subject to a civil investigation by the United States Department of Justice and approximately 30 state attorneys general regarding industry cattle procurement and other industry practices,” a December 2025 SEC filing from National Beef states. “In September of 2025 the Company was notified the DOJ was closing its investigation, and then in November of 2025 the DOJ initiated a new civil antitrust investigation.”
Tyson Foods also reported similar action for their beef sector, according to the company’s filings, noting that they have received civil investigative demands from the DOJ’s Civil Antitrust Division related to the company’s beef industry.
In addition to ongoing antitrust investigations, beef companies have been subject to numerous civil and class-action suits in recent years.
SEC filings show that National Beef is a defendant in five class action lawsuits, alleging violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Packers and Stockyards Act, the Commodity Exchange Act, and various state laws. The company has been accused of antitrust practices such as wage-fixing and suppressing the price paid for cattle.
Tyson Foods is a major player in the beef, chicken and pork sectors, and has been subject to numerous class action lawsuits since 2021 regarding antitrust behaviors. The company disclosed that it has been subject to roughly $700 million in charges related to all three of its protein sectors, as well as wage rate litigation during its fiscal year 2025, according to SEC filings.
The company generated $54 billion in sales in 2025, resulting in gross profit of roughly $3 billion.
Andy Green, former senior advisor on fair and competitive markets during the Biden administration, said a number of the larger meatpackers in the country have already been dealing with and settling out of court various claims of collusion, antitrust and price-fixing, noting there may be new evidence available. But the question remains as to why the current executive order and Trump investigation appear to be so limited in their approach, Green said.
“The full toolkit of the Packers and Stockyards Act, and not just the Sherman Act, would include market manipulation and unfair methods of competition, along with undue preferences and unjust discrimination,” he said. “Is the Trump administration looking at that? I don’t know, but from the face of the executive order, it seems like they have taken a narrower scope focused only on price fixing and collusion.”
Green added that over the last three decades, different administrations and incidents have led the agencies to look into consolidated power in the meat industry — from early GIPSA inspections under the Obama administration to the first Trump administration’s meat supply chain investigation after a 2019 fire at a Tyson packing plant in Kansas — and still nothing substantial has come from these investigations.
“This is a problem that has emerged over forty years,” Green said. “You can’t solve it in four months, let alone barely even four years.”
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