According to AAA, California’s average diesel price on Oct. 1 was more than $8 a gallon, up sharply from $5.16 a year ago. California’s average price represents the highest in the nation, about $2 more than the current national average of about $6.

Experts attribute the price spike in part to continued disruptions to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Ships transiting through the Middle Eastern waterway normally carry about one-fifth of the world’s petroleum, making disruptions there a significant risk to global energy supplies.

Diesel and gas prices have dramatically increased since the war began in February. Other global stressors, including Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries, also play a part.

Ryan Cummings, an economist with the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, said California’s taxes and fees are among the factors driving the state’s higher price. He also pointed to broader global market pressures that are pushing up diesel costs nationwide.

California has historically supplied most of its own gas and diesel, but refinery closures in recent years have led the state to import more from other countries. Even so, Cummings said gas and diesel prices are largely set by the global market, making the impact of in-state refinery closures on current diesel prices negligible.

“There’s some transportation costs, but those are pretty small,” he said. “Whether a refinery opens here or a refinery closes here, as long as you have free trade, it’s the global market that’s going to dictate the price rather than the local production.”

Cummings said this dynamic is why the Trump administration is considering a diesel export ban, even as some warn the policy could eventually push up prices at the pump.

“That cuts off the competition for those barrels from the rest of the world,” he said.

For farmers, the use of diesel is often unavoidable.

Yolo County farmer Bill Cruickshank, who serves as chairman of the California Wheat Commission, said he and other wheat growers already felt the sting of rising diesel prices when they harvested their crop earlier this year.

With the recent price surge, he said wheat farmers are seeing their fuel costs increase by about 6% overall.

Jeromy Geiger, a Glenn County farmer and co-owner of an agricultural trucking business, said diesel powers all his farm equipment—from tractors to pump engines. His trucking business is entirely dependent on diesel to keep its fleet running.

He said he raised the seasonal rate this year on his trucking customers to account for higher diesel costs but is trying to avoid changing them again in the middle of the season.

“We’d like to hope that we don’t adjust immediately and that we’ve factored enough to where we can weather the storm and not hammer our customers, who are all farmers,” he said. “Our trucking business is built entirely on agriculture, so we feel the pain of the farmer as well.”

Geiger said he considered adding electric vehicles to his fleet to reduce his reliance on diesel. He contacted Pacific Gas & Electric Co. three or four years ago about installing a charging station in his truck yard. But he said the company told him it wasn’t feasible because the necessary energy infrastructure wasn’t available in the rural area where he works and lives. As a result, he has continued to rely on diesel.

“For some people, it makes total sense, and it’s totally doable,” Geiger said. “But it can’t work for everybody.”

Colusa County farmer Chris Torres, who also owns an agricultural trucking business, said he faces similar challenges as diesel prices soar. He said fuel is a major expense across his 400 acres of rice, from powering harvesters and tractors to managing rice straw after harvest. Overall, he estimated his fuel costs have gone up by at least 50%.

“It’s all expensive,” Torres said.

With his trucking business, he said he has already had to increase the fuel surcharge for customers. In the past, he adjusted the surcharge seasonally, but rising prices may force him to update it weekly. He said he hopes to avoid daily adjustments but acknowledged the cost of fuel has increased considerably.

Cummings, the Stanford economist, said an end to the war in Iran and a resumption of regular oil shipments would likely bring prices down. But without knowing when those conditions will return, he said it’s hard to predict when diesel prices will fall.

He said global inventories of crude oil and refined products were well-stocked before the war but have steadily declined since it began. The longer the conflict continues, the greater the risk that fuel prices could reach levels that make the current increase seem mild in comparison, he added.

Even if the war ended tomorrow, Cummings said, it would take time for fuel prices to ease, as refineries would need time to process crude oil and replenish depleted inventories.

If all of the inventories are gone, then there’s an acute physical scarcity, which is going to take weeks to get sorted out,” he said.

For growers, Cruickshank said the price of wheat has climbed due to reduced exports from Russia and Ukraine amid their ongoing conflict. But he said farmers have few options for cutting costs in response to the higher diesel prices because many already operate on tight margins.

He said he hopes disruptions to oil shipments end soon, particularly because he doesn’t expect assistance from state officials.

Torres said he hopes profits from last year’s crop will be enough to cover the loans needed to plant this year’s crop. Beyond that, he said it’s hard to plan for what comes next.

“Volatility is extremely challenging,” he said. “There’s not much we can do.”

Manola Secaira is a staff writer for Ag Alert. She can be reached at msecaira@cfbf.com.

The post Diesel price spike increases financial stress for farmers appeared first on Valley Voice.

Experts call the upcoming system a super El Niño. A National Weather Service report in August said there’s a 69% chance its strength would exceed that of previous El Niño events dating back to 1950.

While a stronger-than-usual El Niño might seem to promise more rain—and therefore ample water for farms—experts caution that it doesn’t necessarily mean a boost in snowpack, which helps replenish reservoirs and sustain water supplies through the growing season.

Paul Ullrich, a regional climate modeling professor at the University of California, Davis, describes El Niño as an event that occurs every two to seven years, driven by shifts in wind patterns and ocean temperatures that can influence weather around the world.

“Essentially, from a water management standpoint, we’re expecting to probably end up pretty well off through the summer season in terms of captured water, but we’re worried about potentially low snowpack for ag,” Ullrich said.

He said El Niño increases the probability of above-average winter precipitation, especially in Southern California. But with climate change driving warmer winter temperatures in California in recent years—a trend experts expect will continue in the future—he said there’s no guarantee that additional precipitation will fall as snow and build the state’s snowpack.

“It is much harder for us in California to make those kinds of predictions,” Ullrich said, adding it’s possible the state will end up getting average or below-average rainfall.

He said 2016 offers a good example of how an El Niño event can fail to deliver the expected precipitation in California. That year, forecasters anticipated that a developing super El Niño would bring intense rainfall to the state. While the event brought heavy precipitation to other regions, its effects were weaker farther south, including in California.

“What we found is that the way that the weather pattern set up resulted in the Pacific Northwest getting drenched and California being left dry,” he said. “It was very opposed to what people were expecting for that particular season.”

California’s snowpack has historically acted as a natural reservoir, contributing around 30% of the state’s overall water supply. But a changing climate and declining snowpack levels by summer have challenged that role.

Karla Nemeth, executive director of the Association of California Water Agencies, said California needs to adapt by investing in more reliable sources of water to ensure water users aren’t left scrambling for supplies when warmer months arrive.

“This is probably a year that is going to demonstrate the value of storage in California that doesn’t rely on the slow drip of snowmelt generating inflow over the course of a long, hot summer after we get a great snowpack,” Nemeth said.

She noted the state has worked to invest more in sustainable groundwater infrastructure so more winter precipitation can be stored even if it doesn’t stick around as snow. In addition to building infrastructure, she said evolving forecasting technology has been key to capturing more rain and managing floods.

When warm rain falls on existing snowpack during back-to-back storms, the snow can diminish quickly, Nemeth said. Therefore, tracking how those storms and their varying temperatures affect the remaining snowpack is essential for planning water supplies for the rest of the year, she added.

State climatologist Michael Anderson said California has also worked to improve its response to extreme weather during the winter, especially after the 2023 floods. One change has been making it easier for impacted areas at risk of flooding to take preventive action, including diverting water from river channels to recharge aquifers.

“A lot of what we did in 2023 (was) kind of in an emergency response mode,” he said. “There’s been a lot of work since then to try and actually move it into a more organized space, done under changes to the water code and work with a control board on how it’s regulated so that you’re not relying on a governor’s emergency order to be able to do it.”

Jason Smith, who grows winegrapes and serves as president of Monterey County Farm Bureau, said the 2023 floods were made worse by environmental regulations that prevented community members from clearing vegetation from waterways such as the Salinas River. He said he would like to see such regulatory restrictions changed.

In the meantime, he said farmers have limited options when preparing for flood conditions. Some basic steps include clearing ditches and culverts and planting cover crops to help prevent sediment from washing away, Smith said.

Monterey County farmer Jynel Gularte saw the impacts of 2023’s atmospheric rivers, which submerged more than 200 acres of her farm, broke her levee in multiple places and destroyed a house. She said the financial damage has been difficult to recover from in the years since.

“As you can imagine, it takes a lot of capital to work your ground, to rebuild your levee,” she said. “We had blocks already planted that never came to fruition, so that was a complete loss for us.”

Gularte said she wants the state to make changes that would better prepare people for future floods, including allowing vegetation that clogs parts of the Salinas River to be cleared so the river can better absorb rainfall during extreme weather.

The 2023 floods did bring Gularte some limited benefits. Her farm relies entirely on groundwater, which was partially recharged by the storms that hit during the first few months of that year. The rainfall also allowed her to use less water for irrigation later in the year.

“On our other ranches that didn’t get flooded, we were able to use the natural rainfall to our advantage and schedule our farming practices around that,” Gularte said.

But she said the benefits of the rainfall did not offset the damage caused by flooding. The 2023 floods left some of her acreage unavailable for planting.

She said she can make some changes to prepare for the incoming El Niño weather, such as waiting to plant in flood-prone areas as late as possible and, if there’s a forecast of intense rain, moving equipment so it doesn’t get washed away by a flood.

“I’m anxious about it,” Gularte said. “I don’t like hearing that it’s going to be a super El Niño because there’s no way we can have another flood like 2023 … That would be absolutely tragic.”

Manola Secaira is a staff writer for Ag Alert. She can be reached at msecaira@cfbf.com.

The post El Niño increases chances of winter storms and floods appeared first on Valley Voice.

The Mid-Kings River GSA is seeking landowner approval for an assessment of up to $26.84 per assessable acre for fiscal years 2027 through 2031. The assessment is structured as a not-to-exceed amount, with the GSA Board setting the actual assessment each year based on its adopted budget. The proposal would provide up to $2.5 million annually for GSA operations and implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.

“Without adequate funding for GSAs, the Tulare Lake Subbasin will never be released from probation by the SWRCB,” said Dusty Ference, Executive Director of Kings County Farm Bureau.

The Tulare Lake Subbasin was placed on probation by the State Water Resources Control Board in April 2024. Since then, the Mid-Kings River GSA and the other GSAs within the subbasin have been working to address the State Board’s concerns.

According to the Mid-Kings River GSA, assessment revenue would fund SGMA compliance and administration, Groundwater Sustainability Plan updates and implementation, groundwater monitoring, monitoring equipment, dry well mitigation administration, and public outreach.

KCFB recognizes that the proposed assessment represents an additional cost to landowners. The Board considered that cost in taking its position and determined that adequate local funding is necessary for the GSA to carry out its responsibilities under SGMA.

Ballots must be received by the Mid-Kings River GSA no later than the conclusion of its public hearing, which begins at 1:00 p.m. on September 29, 2026, at the Kings County Government Center in Hanford. Ballots are weighted according to the potential financial obligation of each affected property.

Kings County Farm Bureau’s position is in support of the proposed assessment.

The post Kings County Farm Bureau supports Mid-Kings River Groundwater Sustainability Prop 218 assessment appeared first on Valley Voice.

In response, Allison Febbo, General Manager of Westlands Water District, issued the following statement:

“We appreciate this increased allocation and want to acknowledge the hard work the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) puts into managing the Central Valley Project. Balancing competing demands across a complex, aging system is not easy, and we appreciate that Reclamation is committed to finding ways to improve water availability for Central Valley growers as the season progresses.

At the same time, a 3 percent allocation increase this late in the year only underscores the need to modernize California’s water management system. Even when hydrologic conditions improve, our current system too often falls short of delivering available water to the people, farms, and communities that depend on it.

In this strained system, every drop counts and this increase is meaningful to the farmers on the west side of Fresno and Kings counties. Our growers produce food for our region, our state, and the country’s tables. Every additional acre-foot of surface water helps them maintain operations, preserve farm jobs, keep agricultural land in production, and reduce pressure on groundwater pumping. We do not take that for granted. This additional allocation will directly help avoid pumping critical groundwater reserves that are essential to the survival of our farms during periods of surface water shortages.

We look forward to continue working with Reclamation and federal and state leadership as we work together toward a more reliable and responsive water supply system that can better serve the family farmers and rural communities of the San Joaquin Valley for years to come.”

Westlands continues to work with the Bureau of Reclamation, federal leadership, and policymakers to develop new methods and tools that will secure earlier, increased allocations and improve operational flexibility in the future.

The post Westlands Water District responds to updated Central Valley Project allocation appeared first on Valley Voice.

The DGN Forward Under 40 award, sponsored by Lely, recognizes four passionate dairywomen working to better the dairy industry today. The DGN Leading Impact award honors a distinguished dairywoman with involvement and leadership achievements positively impacting the dairy industry.

Nominees for both awards can be a dairy farmer, industry representative, educator and/or have multiple dairy related roles. The ideal candidate will have contributed success towards dairy farming, is a leader within the agricultural industry and their community and be paving the way for future generations.

“Every day, women across the dairy industry are leading with passion, resilience and vision, states Rebecca Pfeffer, DGN President. “The DGN Awards give us an opportunity to pause, celebrate these remarkable achievements and elevate the voices shaping the future of dairy farming. I encourage everyone to nominate an incredible leader who inspires our community.”

Nominations will be evaluated by an outside panel of anonymous industry professionals and dairy farmers. Nominators will be notified in September. The nominee must be able to attend the Forward TogetHER National Conference from October 27 – 29, 2026 in Lexington, Kentucky. More information about the awards and nomination forms are available on DairyGirlNetwork.com.

Nominations will close on Thursday, August 31, 2026, at midnight CST. Anyone can nominate a deserving dairywoman for recognition of her achievements. Self-nominations will not be accepted. All nominees should be an official member of the Dairy Girl Network. If they receive DGN emails, they are a member. If not a member, or if they need to register – It is quick, easy and free at DairyGirlNetwork.com/Join.

Dairy Girl Network partners with organizations valuing personal and professional development for dairywomen. DGN national partners supporting all women in dairy by enhancing lives and creating opportunities are Alltech, Dairy Management, Inc., Cargill, Dairy Farmers of America, Diamond V, Farm Credit Systems (AgCountry Farm Credit Services, American AgCredit, Compeer Financial, Farm Credit Services of America, GreenStone Farm Credit Services, AgWest Farm Credit),Michael Best, Lallemand, The National Dairy FARM Program and Sealpro Silage Barrier Films. Event sponsorships for the Forward TogetHER National Conference are available. If your company is interested in sponsoring to help the event be even more of a success, contact AmandaK@DairyGirlNetwork.com. Visit DairyGirlNetwork.com to view an event agenda and register for Forward TogetHER.

The post Dairywomen Award nominations open through Dairy Girl Network appeared first on Valley Voice.

The North American neighbor has long been the top export market for agricultural products from California and the U.S. as a whole. But a trade conflict that began shortly after President Donald Trump returned to office last year has put that relationship on fragile footing.

“There has been a lot of volatility,” said James Sayre, an international trade researcher and assistant professor of Cooperative Extension at the University of California, Davis.

The dispute reached another inflection point last month when the Trump administration announced plans to impose new 50% tariffs on some Canadian goods. Meanwhile, the two nations and Mexico began negotiations on the renewal of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement during Trump’s first term as president.

“The purpose of USMCA was to secure guaranteed access for producers in all three countries into the other ones’ markets,” Sayre said.

Bilateral agricultural trade between the U.S. and Canada last year was valued at $9.2 billion, according to federal data.

On July 1, which marked the first review deadline since the trade pact began in 2020, the Trump administration opted not to approve a 16-year extension of the USMCA. The trade agreement remains in effect, but the decision by the U.S. not to automatically extend it triggered an annual review and negotiation process.

Amid that backdrop, stakeholders from both sides of the border met last week at a closed-door meeting in Sacramento to discuss their priorities. Those in attendance included California Department of Food and Agriculture Secretary Karen Ross, Canadian Consul General Rana Sarkar and representatives of various agricultural commodity groups.

“Trade is extremely important to California agriculture,” said Matthew Viohl, director of federal policy advocacy at the California Farm Bureau, which hosted the meeting. “We want to be leaders on this, and we’ll continue to take this conversation to D.C. and emphasize our goals.”

Among the topics discussed, Viohl said, were bans on U.S. alcohol sales imposed by several Canadian provinces.

The provincial bans came in response last year to Trump’s tariffs on Canadian products and his promises to annex Canada and make it a U.S. state, which caused California wine sales to Canada to plummet from $404 million in 2024 to $90 million last year.

Trump cited Canada’s “discrimination” against U.S. alcohol last month in his proclamation announcing new tariffs on Canadian goods, which were scheduled to take effect Aug. 19 if Canada does not meet certain conditions.

The collapse of the Canadian market worsened an already bleak outlook for California winegrape growers and wine producers.

“That’s a really strong headwind on top of the other headwinds they’re already facing,” Sayre said.

In recent years, a global downturn in wine consumption left the state with a persistent oversupply of grapes. In each of the past three years, some of California’s winegrape crop went unpicked due to lack of demand. Last year, a record amount of around 820,000 tons of winegrapes—about a quarter of the crop—went unpicked, according to industry estimates.

Sarkar, the Canadian official, said the country’s government could not speak to the bans on California wine because “decisions on the sale of alcoholic beverages in Canada are made at the provincial level.”

He added, “Canada remains committed to constructive engagement with the U.S. and to restoring predictability in our trading relationship, which we see as benefiting businesses on both sides of the border.”

California exporters of fresh fruits and vegetables also reported losing Canadian trade partners due to boycotts last year of U.S. goods.

However, federal data showed overall exports of fresh California produce to Canada remained relatively stable.

While Canadian consumers might be able to shift wine consumption to domestically produced wines or imports from Europe, South America or Australia, Sayre said, it isn’t as easy for Canada to source perishable goods from other continents.

“Wine doesn’t degrade if you ship it on a boat for a long time,” he said. “But with something like strawberries, it’s going to be hard to divert that sort of trade from California.”

Sayre said California commodities such as almonds have more secure access to the Canadian market because the state effectively holds a monopoly on production. With about 80% of the world’s almonds grown in the Central Valley, “I don’t even know where else you’d go (for almonds) in this hemisphere,” he added.

As negotiations around the renewal of the USMCA continue, Viohl, the Farm Bureau policy advocate, said free trade agreements with Canada had generally benefitted California’s agriculture sector—even if they weren’t perfect.

“USMCA has been productive for all three countries,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t ways that we would like to see it improved.”

Viohl said that because California farmers and ranchers are subject to some of the most stringent environmental and labor regulations, which increase their operating costs, the state’s producers want to ensure international trade partners adhere to the minimum production standards outlined in trade agreements.

“We just want to make sure that other countries are holding up their obligations, too,” he said. “What we really stress when it comes to trade is stability and fairness.”

Officials from the U.S., Mexico and Canada are scheduled to hold another round of talks related to the renewal of the USMCA in September.

The post State’s farmers seek fairness in trade talks with Canada appeared first on Valley Voice.

“Once again, DPR is sitting on bad news instead of telling the people breathing this air,” said Angel Garcia, co-director of the statewide coalition Californians for Pesticide Reform. “The Department loves a press release when a number goes down. When a number blows past their own safety trigger, they bury it in a spreadsheet and hope nobody notices. That’s not regulation — that’s public relations for the pesticide industry.”

DPR’s Air Monitoring Network tracks 1,3-D at six sites across the state. Four of the six monitored communities saw annual average levels rise in 2025 over the prior year:

• Parlier (Fresno County): 0.16 ppb → 0.35 ppb (59% → 131% of the action level)
• Delhi (Merced County): 0.11 ppb → 0.16 ppb (40% → 58% of the action level)
• Santa Maria (Santa Barbara County): 0.04 ppb → 0.07 ppb (15% → 25% of the action level)
• Watsonville (Santa Cruz County): 0.03 ppb → 0.07 ppb (10% → 28% of the action level)

1,3-D is classified by the state of California as a human carcinogen and Toxic Air Contaminant. DPR established the 0.27ppb annual action level specifically as an early-warning threshold — a level meant to trigger review and consideration of mitigation. Parlier residents, especially those near the monitoring site, were breathing air that exceeds that line, in a community already overburdened by agricultural chemical exposure.

Concerns are compounded by the fact that DPR’s trigger for review of 0.27 ppb is almost 7 times higher than the 1,3-D Cancer No Significant Risk Level (NSRL) set by OEHHA, which is equivalent to 0.04 ppb. Annual and longer-term air levels at some of these monitoring sites exceed the NSRL many times over.

Under its own regulatory framework, DPR is required to follow up when the action level is exceeded. As of this release, DPR has not issued any public statement or press release about the Parlier exceedance, nor disclosed what, if any, follow-up review or mitigation steps are underway. DPR has also failed to notify residents, schools, or local health officials in the affected community.

“DPR needs to take a hard look at why air levels rose at more than half of their air monitoring sites after new regulations were put in place,” said Anne Katten with California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

The Californians for Pesticide Reform coalition is calling on DPR to:

1. Disclose what mitigation measures, if any, are being considered or implemented
2. Immediately and publicly notify Parlier residents, the local school district, and county health officials of the exceedance
3. Commit to real-time, proactive public notification whenever any Air Monitoring Network site exceeds a DPR action level — not passive posting of raw data
4. Explain why four of six monitoring sites saw 1,3-D levels rise in 2025, and evaluate whether the current regulations and action level are adequate to protect public health.

The post Cancer-causing pesticide exceeds California’s own safety trigger, requiring state to act appeared first on Valley Voice.

The post Fourth of July cookout costs reflect inflation appeared first on Valley Voice.

As California’s wolf population has grown to 12 packs throughout the state, livestock producers throughout California have experienced increasing losses from wolf depredation. In the first three months of 2026, there were already 26 confirmed livestock deaths attributed to wolves. That comes on heels of the 196 confirmed attacks in 2025 – a record for California.

For ranchers, the impact extends beyond the loss of an individual animal. Wolf depredation can disrupt herd reproduction, lower weight gain, and increase stress on the animal and the rancher who is fighting to protect their livestock. Due to the gray wolf’s protected status under state and federal law, management of the species is very restrictive.

“This grant wouldn’t be possible without the Department of Fish and Wildlife, California Cattlemen’s Association and others,” said Shannon Douglass, President of California Farm Bureau. “While not a solution to the conflict, the Wolf Livestock Compensation Program is one avenue that helps ranchers deal with loss. Until we have more options to deter wolves, we will keep seeing more attacks on livestock. I appreciate Director Hertel’s leadership and CDFW for providing more tools to ranchers.”

“CDFW deeply values its partners and looks forward to continued collaboration with these organizations to help reduce wolf-livestock conflicts, support California’s livestock producers, and manage the recovery of wolves in California.” said CDFW Meghan Hertel. “We have heard clearly from ranchers how hard the return of wolves has been on their livelihoods— not just financially, but in the day-to-day toll of managing this change.”

Eligibility will continue to be determined by CDFW in accordance with the Wolf Livestock Compensation Program (WLCP). The majority of the $1.1 million grant consists of funding to provide direct loss compensation to ranchers consistent with prong 1, and opportunities for county support for implementation of the WLCP.

Beyond financial assistance, California Farm Bureau will continue to provide education, outreach and equipment to help farmers and ranchers respond to the return of wolves and build long-term resilience in their operations. Sierra Valley Resource Conservation District, Honey Lake Resource Conservation District, and Working Circle also received grants to provide technical assistance, outreach, and training to affected ranchers.

California Farm Bureau works to protect family farms and ranches as part of a nationwide network representing more than 5 million Farm Bureau members. Learn more at www.cfbf.com or follow @cafarmbureau on Instagram, LinkedIn, X or Facebook.

The post California Farm Bureau partners with California Department of Fish and Wildlife for $1.1 million to ranchers facing livestock loss from wolf attacks appeared first on Valley Voice.

Industry analysis shows meat sales hit $112 billion in 2025, with more than 98% of American households purchasing meat for daily meals. USDA is forecasting consumption of beef, pork and chicken to rise in 2026.

“Beef remains the centerpiece of many cookouts, but record-high prices and historically tight cattle inventories continue to challenge both consumers and producers,” the Market Intel states. “Pork offers relative value and stability, supported by efficient production and strong export markets, even as producers navigate ongoing disease risks. Meanwhile, chicken stands out as the most accessible option, with steady production growth and modest prices helping it maintain its place as America’s most-consumed protein.”

USDA reports the average retail price for beef set a record in April at $9.64 per pound, up about 13% from the previous year. Beef prices remain elevated by strong demand and the smallest U.S. cattle herd in 75 years. This is a result of years of drought, reduced income following the pandemic and elevated operating costs that have led farmers to liquidate their herds.

The average price of pork increased 2.3% from April 2025 to April 2026. Pork chops are the most popular cut. The average retail price for pork chops in U.S. cities was $4.33 per pound in April 2026, up 9 cents per pound from the same time last year. Prices reflect a balanced supply of hogs and growing consumer demand.

For chicken, USDA estimates about 42.2 billion pounds of chicken will be purchased in 2026, up 46 million pounds from 2025. The overall price of chicken fell in April by 0.7% compared to April 2025. Boneless chicken breasts in U.S. cities cost an average of $4.17 per pound in April, down a penny from the same time last year. Poultry flocks continue to recover from avian influenza, which has helped to control price increases.

American Farm Bureau Federation President Zippy Duvall said, “Home-grown meat continues to be a staple for America’s families. Despite higher prices at the grocery store, families trust America’s farmers and ranchers to grow the food that is put on the grill and on dinner tables across the country. We urge the administration and Congress to prioritize ranchers as they rebuild herds so they can continue to meet the needs of the nation’s families.”

For shoppers looking to save money, retailers and grocery stores generally increase promotional sales and specials as holidays draw closer.

While this is a snapshot of current meat prices, the American Farm Bureau Federation conducts annual surveys of the average cost of a full Thanksgiving dinner and a 4^th of July cookout. The 4^th of July marketbasket survey will be released on June 26, 2026.

The post U.S. meat consumption increases despite rising prices appeared first on Valley Voice.