Recently, Frank Mendonsa, president of Western United Dairies, released an email to their subscriber base announcing the “Make America More Ground Beef” program. “With base programs starting earlier this year, every additional revenue stream on our farms is being affected. Standing still is not an option. That’s why WUD has been working on a new, voluntary opportunity designed by dairy farmers, for dairy farmers, that could provide meaningful relief, quickly,” the email reads.
The program claims to be completely voluntary and open to all U.S. dairy operations regardless of size. It is “designed to divert 800,000-1,000,000 additional dairy-origin cattle in spring 2026, adding 900 million-1.1 billion pounds of lean trim to the ground beef market. This would then lower retail ground beef prices by 18-25%, increase overall beef demand, and support packing plants and rural jobs.”
The proposed program outlines two tracks producers can follow. The first being the “immediate cull track” where producers can cull cows of any age or condition and receive $1,600/head in addition to market price, plus a $200 early-delivery bonus, paid upon with proof of slaughter within 30 days. The second track is the “feedlot beef track,” in which dairy heifers over 400 lbs. would be shipped to approved feedlots for a minimum finishing period while producers would receive $1,800/head in addition to market price, plus a $200 early bonus equaling a potential $2,000/head incentive.
The program offers a few guardrails to “protect long-term viability” with an “above-baseline rule” where incentives would only be paid on additional animals culled beyond a producer’s normal culling level. This program is dairy-only verification through breed checks, RFID and packer attestations. Capacity safeguards would be in place for real-time monitoring pauses as regional signups if plants reach 90% capacity to prevent a bottleneck. They have also proposed a USDA-aligned cap on a per-entity payment cap that aligns with standard USDA program limits. The email doesn’t explain how the normal culling level will be verified.
Mendonsa goes on to urge producers to reach out to USDA directly with a live link that takes producers to a fill-in-the-blank letter where they can click submit and voice support for the program.
That’s a lot to absorb in a short amount of time. While the beef herd has continued to decline over the last several years and reached the lowest inventory point in the last 73 years, the dairy herd has grown. According to a Dairy Herdarticle from August, normal culling rates of 32% in 2023 dropped back to 29.6% in 2024, creating the sharpest retentional pace over the last 17 years by adding 146,000 more cows into production. According to sources for this column, the replacement heifer shortage was quickly adjusted and 2025 proved to oversupply this area of the dairy chain, causing a shortfall in heifer values.
This added growth accounted for a 3.4% year-over-year increase in milk yield, representing the sharpest growth in the last five years. California alone increased by 3.8%. States like Kansas, Texas and South Dakota are reporting robust dairy herd growth ranging from 8.4% to 18.6%. Now, according to Business Insider data, milk has dropped off by 27.4% in the last 12 months—7% this month already.
If approved, this will have a profound impact on the markets. The major question will be how long will it take to overcome this? While there are verbal indications that beef producers are starting to retain heifers, the market had to work overtime to make up lost ground from last fall’s D.C. debacle. In fact, comparing the latest Northen Video Market data from their recent Diamond Ring Sale, lighter cattle showed a small improvement over the September data from similar weight classes. Only cattle above 700 lbs. still hadn’t regained full market price. Overall, steers sold 1% higher according to preliminary data.
This proposal likely isn’t being made public without some thought it may happen. I doubt it’s that reckless, but we all know the lobbying power the co-ops hold. As California Cattlemen’s Association President Rick Roberti called it in a statement, it’s short-sighted. That’s being friendly, but since Western United Dairies didn’t return my emails or phone calls, I’ll move forward with my thoughts.
This calf market has created an interesting scenario by being able to keep an older cow one more lactation simply since she is reproductively viable because a pregnant cow is carrying a potential day-old calf worth upwards of $1,400. In the West, reports to WLJ on this issue seem to be from one co-op to another. In some areas, dairy producers are still operating in the black. However, other co-ops are tightening milk payments in lieu of a new facility and taxing the milk checks along the way. Co-ops supplying the Central Valley in California, the location where this proposal materialized from, is in the latter situation.
This cash-grab proposal solves a problem in the short term when it appears the free market will take care of itself at a quick pace, but hey, why not try to get some free government dollars before the market fixes itself and, in the meantime, tank a market that every beef producer has needed over the last decade? We will need the right people in the right ears to make sure this proposal doesn’t get any further than it already has. A proposal like this deepens the divide between beef and dairy producers, but with this being as aggressive as it is written, it’s hard not to shudder at the language this proposal carries. This will be something we will need to keep our eyes on. — LOGAN IPSEN
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