Flesh-eating parasites, angry cattlemen: The many woes facing Trump’s hog-wrestling, crisis-managing agriculture secretary

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Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who grew up on a farm and once described winning a hog-catching contest with her sister, should have been in her element at the Iowa State Fair last week.

But she seemed to have been caught off guard when, just as she was making an appearance at the fair in Des Moines, the White House announced a deal to import 300,000 tons of beef.

It was intended to offset high prices at the grocery stores, but ranchers were not pleased.

She defended the plan – “We’re going to see that cost of ground beef go down,” she told reporters in Iowa – even as days later she said she was “not privy” to talk about the details.

Rollins had initially addressed the media after a meeting with Iowa grain farmers and livestock producers grew testy, according to one participant. The secretary ended up spending more time behind closed doors with officials than in public, touring the fairgrounds.

The consternation over beef policy is the latest headache for a normally low-profile Cabinet post. Rollins’ ability to keep the peace with farmers and the agriculture industry over the next few months could have real impacts on elections this fall, as Republicans work to hold onto rural voters in traditionally red districts across the country.

Interviews with more than a dozen people, including current and former officials, industry figures, state officials and people familiar with the US Department of Agriculture’s response depict Rollins as a capable, savvy political operator who has often moved quickly to contain farmer anger, find money inside a sprawling agency and keep herself in Trump’s good graces.

One of few women remaining in the leadership ranks, insiders say Rollins is a shrewd negotiator who has also managed to make inroads with a constituency known for its animosity to “Big Ag”: Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s MAHA supporters.

“She’s deceptively sweet,” said Chuck DeVore, a former California state assemblyman who worked with Rollins for years at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “There’s a lot of steel underneath that velvet.”

But sources also describe a department under severe strain from DOGE-driven cuts and criticized for inconsistent communication with stakeholders.

In one key instance, Rollins came under fire over delays to build a facility needed to help combat an epidemic of New World screwworm, a parasitic fly, in cattle. Critics say time was lost while she entertained a proposal from a politically connected construction contractor — time some insiders now say made the outbreak harder to manage.

Rollins, a native Texan and one of Trump’s most politically fluent Cabinet members, has been saddled with shielding farmers and ranchers from cascading crises since she took over USDA in February 2025, when the sector was already facing a slew of problems.

Bird flu was ravaging poultry flocks, spreading through dairy herds and driving up egg prices. The flesh-eating screwworm livestock parasite, which had been eradicated from the US decades ago, was creeping north through Mexico. And the agency charged with managing those threats was bracing for budget and staffing upheaval as DOGE cuts began thinning its ranks of tens of thousands of employees.

Since then, things have only gotten worse.

Drought, tariffs, fuel and fertilizer costs pushed up by the war in Iran and the screwworm crisis that hit this June have depleted herds and squeezed farm profits. Today, US farm bankruptcies are at a six-year high, according to data from Epiq AACER, a bankruptcy reporting platform.

In an apparent bid to assuage discontent, on Friday, the administration announced new efforts to streamline beef processing. Rollins followed up with plans Monday to invest in rebuilding American cattle herds.

Yet the National Cattlemen’s Association called the processing maneuvers a “short-term political fix” that doesn’t help farmers where they need it – a criticism USDA contended was “extremely shortsighted.”

Rollins did not speak to CNN for this story, but a USDA spokesperson said: “Secretary Rollins has unequivocally supported the President’s America First trade agenda,” pointing to recent initiatives and accomplishments on school food, fertilizer production and modernization efforts for ranchers.

The administration’s agenda has significantly reduced the agricultural trade deficit, they said.

As the threat of parasitic flies crept up from the southern border last year, Rollins weighed tapping a company Trump has favored to helm a multimillion-dollar effort to eradicate them.

Currently one of the most effective methods for dealing with New World screwworm is through breeding and releasing millions of sterile flies who mate without producing viable larvae carrying the parasite, thus eradicating the pests.

Before the first US case popped up in a calf in Texas in June, Trump officials balked at the steep costs of building a US sterile fly facility, which were estimated to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a former senior official.

“It was extremely difficult to convince [Rollins and USDA leadership] that we had to get going then, in order to be prepared for what was coming at us,” the person said.

But with Rollins’ guidance, discussions eventually began with a construction company involved in building “Alligator Alcatraz,” last year, according to the source, who had direct knowledge of the matter.

The immigration detention facility was built rapidly and meant to keep up with the federal immigration crackdown but it quickly became a source of controversy with reports of inhumane conditions. Amid mounting legal challenges, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in June that the facility had been shut down.

The company under consideration, which had previously snagged government contracts under both Trump and former President Joe Biden for border wall construction, made an appealing pitch: a speedy $25 million project.

But about six months later, it said it could not build a massive facility to churn out sterile flies quickly, or as cheaply, as initially proposed, according to the official. Officials were also concerned that it could not keep to promised costs and that their plans could raise biosecurity containment issues regarding the genetically modified flies, according to the source.

The USDA did not answer specific criticisms over its consideration of the company and the process but said its response to the screwworm problem has been successful.

“When the first case was identified in Texas on June 3, 2026, many ‘experts’ and media outlets projected major infestations, but instead the plan has been working and as of today, there are only 3 active cases of NWS and 48 total in the USA,” the spokesperson said.

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While Rollins announced an intention to build a Texas facility near the Mexican border last June, it was roughly 10 months before there was action. The delay was inscrutable for the agriculture industry and farmers worried about the coming threat, according to two sources familiar with discussions.

“We wasted a lot of time listening to these pitches,” one of them said.

USDA and the Army Corps of Engineers eventually awarded the bulk of the contract to Mortenson Construction in March 2026. Builders broke ground this April. Rollins announced recently that it is seven months ahead of schedule and could open in the spring. It will cost an estimated $750 million.

In Texas, outgoing Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller — a Republican who lost a reelection bid earlier this year — has repeatedly criticized what he sees as a slow and inadequate response.

“Instead of using every available tool, USDA moved too slowly and relied solely on a partial solution that takes years to fully implement,” he said in a June statement.

Miller also suggested farmers would be unwilling to report screwworm cases, fearing quarantine of their livestock.

Rollins responded to Miller’s criticism that month, calling his charge “a very unserious comment, from perhaps an unserious ag commissioner with just a few months left,” she said. Though he won Trump’s endorsement days before this year’s election, Miller had been hammered by criticism from Texas politicians including Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, over a series of alleged corruption scandals.

Other Texans who have met with Rollins have had a more tempered view.

Texas Farm Bureau President Russell Boening told CNN that Rollins began discussions on screwworm within weeks of being confirmed. “I mean, she was also dealing with the avian flu at that time, egg prices were through the roof, and so she was dealing with that,” he said.

“Do we wish it would have been done a little faster? Yeah, but it wasn’t,” he added. “So, you know, at this point, let’s don’t do any more blame game. Let’s just, let’s just do our best with what we have.”

The USDA spokesperson said the agency’s approach “has been to turn over every rock to bring additional production online as fast as possible.”

“All efforts have moved at a breakneck speed,” they added.

Since February, it has released a billion sterile flies along the US-Mexico border as of late last month, USDA has said.

Though Rollins’ critics complain she does not have direct experience with USDA, her farming credentials run deep.

Previously a lawyer, she hails from a farm in a small town outside of Fort Worth, Texas.

In a 2024 podcast interview on the Lou Holtz Show, Rollins — Rollins, then president of the Trump-aligned America First Policy Institute, the think-tank she co-founded with economist Larry Kudlow — recalled winning a hog-catching contest with her sister about a decade ago.

“We had a strategy and a plan, which seems to be a common theme in my life. You always have to have a strategy, and you always have to have a plan,” she told the famed ex-football coach. “We had a plan to wrestle that wild hog — and he was a wild, big hog — and put him into a bag and drag him across the finish line.”

She seems to have taken a similar tack in approaching policy work. Those who have worked with her say she is detail oriented and practical, focused on what building consensus and acting.

Boening, of the Texas Farm Bureau, recalled a meeting Rollins convened last year with 13 Texas state directors.

“She said, ‘I’d like for each of y’all to give me one issue that’s really important to you or to your area,’” he said. “She wrote down every one of those issues, and she went back and addressed them to every person.”

Trump’s team first approached her in 2016 after she had risen to prominence leading the Austin-based Texas Public Policy Foundation, rapidly expanding the tiny conservative think tank into a small government, free-market powerhouse.

She would say that it was not “a think tank, it’s a do tank. So she was always focused on practical implementation of ideas,” Devore, who worked with her at the foundation, said.

Rollins joined Trump’s first presidential campaign as an economic adviser just months before Election Day, but resisted a move to Washington when Trump won.

It was not until 2018 that she joined his administration with a mandate to bring ‘the Texas model’ to federal policy.

By 2018, Rollins had ascended to lead Trump’s Office of American Innovation and later the White House Domestic Policy Council, where her career started to circle back to agricultural policy.

Yet despite her longtime loyalties, there was not an obvious place for Rollins in the second Trump administration, two people familiar with internal transition discussions said. She was the last nominee named to a Cabinet-level position when Trump won his second presidency.

“When I had a chance, I said, ‘What about Department of Agriculture?’ I had no idea that she … went to school on agriculture,” Trump said during a speech to farmers this March. “I would have put her there even if she didn’t.”

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Rollins has claimed she is unsure “that you could ever find someone that is more pro-rancher, pro-farmer, pro-rural America than this president,” and that Trump has been fully bought in to what she has needed since the start of the administration.

“I walked in the Oval Office and I said, ‘Sir, there is a pretty serious threat to our livestock that’s headed our way,’” Rollins told a Senate committee in June. “And he said, ‘Well, what do you need?’”

Trump, in turn, said Rollins is doing “a fantastic job” and has called her a natural leader.

“Brooke, I always said, could run any company in the world. She could run these big companies. She’s a great executive,” he said during the March speech.

But Rollins has had to get creative with the agency’s budget to cover the many woes that have befallen farmers in Trump’s second term.

Sources previously told CNN that, last year, amid tariff pressures on farmers’ profits, she once burst into the Oval Office to declare that she had found a critical $3 billion in emergency relief.

The administration later announced a $12 billion relief fund .

Another prospective emergency fund is on the table now: Last month, the House passed a relief package – also for $12 billion – that will now be considered by the Senate.

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Senate Republicans, led by Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas, appear eager to finalize a bailout as farmers plan for their 2027 planting season. But with a packed September agenda, including the need to pass a broader federal budget or continuing resolution, its fate remains to be seen.

The relief may not come soon enough for farmers planning their next planting season, said Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union. On top of pressures from the Iran conflict, the US is sparring over trade agreements with Canada, a major supplier of farm equipment.

“These challenges aren’t going to go away anytime soon. It’s going to be well into 2027, maybe even longer before we start to see any kind of relief, and then you throw the tariffs in there,” said Levendofsky. “Farmers are getting squeezed from all sides, just like consumers, everyday people are.”

Trump’s agreement to import beef — amid outstanding questions about where it is coming from — has set off a fresh round of frustration and open GOP concern.

Cattle producers are “increasingly concerned about the unpredictability of the political policy environment,” Glynn Tonsor, an agricultural economist at Kansas State University who studies meat pricing, said. That uncertainty is particularly problematic for an industry where expanding a herd requires a five- to 15-year investment.

“Most people only make multi-year investments if either the economic return looks very lucrative to support the risk or you’re comfortable with a fair amount of limited risk and unpredictability,” he said. Right now, cattle ranchers don’t see either condition being met.

“We’ve got 71 days [until the midterms], and right now we don’t have a positive message to tell farm country,” retiring North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis told reporters on August 24. “If you think that providing subsidized beef for some period of time is going to make farmers happy and prices go down on a systemic basis, you’re wrong.”

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny, Adam Cancryn, Elisabeth Buchwald and Morgan Rimmer contributed to this report.

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农业部长布鲁克·罗林斯在农场长大，她曾描述过自己和姐姐赢得捉猪比赛的经历。上周，她本应在爱荷华州博览会上如鱼得水。

但就在她出席得梅因博览会时，白宫宣布了一项进口 30 万吨牛肉的协议，这似乎让她措手不及。

此举旨在抵消杂货店的高物价，但牧场主们并不满意。

她为该计划辩护——“我们将看到碎牛肉的价格下降，”她在爱荷华州告诉记者——但几天后，她又表示自己“不了解”细节。

据一位与会者透露，罗林斯最初是在与爱荷华州粮食种植户和牲畜生产者会面后，气氛变得紧张起来，之后才向媒体发表了讲话。最终，这位部长花在与官员闭门会谈上的时间比公开露面和参观博览会场地的时间还要多。

牛肉政策引发的争议，给这位通常低调的内阁成员带来了最新的麻烦。罗林斯能否在未来几个月内与农民和农业界保持良好关系，可能会对今年秋季的选举产生切实的影响，因为共和党人正努力在全国各地的传统共和党选区争取农村选民的支持。

对包括现任和前任官员、行业人士、州政府官员以及熟悉美国农业部应对措施的人士在内的十几人的采访，将罗林斯描绘成一位能干、精明的政治操盘手，她经常迅速采取行动来控制农民的愤怒，在一个庞大的机构内部找到资金，并让自己保持与特朗普的良好关系。

内部人士称，罗林斯是领导层中为数不多的女性之一，她是一位精明的谈判者，并且成功地与以敌视“大型农业企业”而闻名的选民群体——小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪的MAHA支持者——建立了联系。

“她外表甜美，但内心却很坚强，”曾任加州州议员、并在德克萨斯州公共政策基金会与罗林斯共事多年的查克·德沃雷说道，“在那层柔情之下，藏着一颗钢铁般的心。”

但消息人士也指出，由于 DOGE 导致的削减，该部门面临巨大压力，并因与利益相关者沟通不畅而受到批评。

在一次关键事件中，罗林斯因拖延建造一座用于防治牛群新世界螺旋蝇（一种寄生蝇）疫情的设施而受到抨击。批评人士称，她当时考虑接受一位与政界关系密切的建筑承包商的提议，导致工期延误——一些内部人士现在认为，正是这段时间使得疫情更难控制。

罗林斯是德克萨斯州本地人，也是特朗普内阁中最具政治手腕的成员之一。自 2025 年 2 月接管美国农业部以来，她一直肩负着保护农民和牧场主免受一系列危机影响的重任，当时该行业已经面临诸多问题。

禽流感肆虐家禽，蔓延至奶牛场，推高了鸡蛋价格。几十年前已在美国根除的食肉螺旋蝇寄生虫，正从墨西哥向北蔓延。负责应对这些威胁的机构正面临预算和人员变动的严峻考验，因为州政府的预算削减计划已开始导致其数万名员工的队伍缩减。

从那以后，情况就每况愈下了。

干旱、关税、伊朗战争推高了燃料和化肥价格，再加上今年6月爆发的螺旋蝇疫情，导致牲畜数量锐减，农场利润大幅缩水。据破产报告平台Epiq AACER的数据显示，目前美国农场破产数量已达到六年来的最高水平。

为了平息民众的不满，政府于周五宣布了一系列旨在简化牛肉加工流程的新举措。罗林斯随后在周一公布了投资重建美国牛群的计划。

然而，全国牧牛人协会称这些处理手段是“短期的政治权宜之计”，并不能在农民需要的地方提供帮助——美国农业部则认为这种批评“目光极其短浅”。

罗林斯没有就此事接受 CNN 的采访，但美国农业部发言人表示：“罗林斯部长一直明确支持总统的‘美国优先’贸易议程”，并指出最近在学校食品、化肥生产和牧场现代化方面取得的举措和成就。

他们表示，本届政府的施政方针已显著减少了农业贸易逆差。

去年，随着寄生蝇的威胁从南部边境蔓延而来，罗林斯考虑聘请特朗普青睐的一家公司来牵头开展一项耗资数百万美元的根除寄生蝇的行动。

目前，对付新世界螺旋蝇最有效的方法之一是培育并释放数百万只不育的蝇，这些蝇交配后不会产生携带寄生虫的可存活幼虫，从而根除害虫。

在今年 6 月德克萨斯州一头小牛身上出现美国首例病例之前，据一位前高级官员透露，特朗普政府官员对建造美国无菌果蝇设施的高昂成本犹豫不决，估计成本高达数亿美元。

“要说服罗林斯和美国农业部领导层，我们必须立即行动起来，为即将发生的事情做好准备，这非常困难，”该人士表示。

但据一位直接了解此事的消息人士透露，在罗林斯的指导下，去年最终与一家参与建造“鳄鱼阿尔卡特拉斯”的建筑公司开始了讨论。

这座移民拘留中心迅速建成，旨在应对联邦政府严厉的移民打击行动，但很快就因非人道待遇的报道而引发争议。在不断增加的法律挑战下，佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯于6月宣布关闭该中心。

这家正在考虑的公司此前曾在特朗普和前总统乔·拜登执政期间获得过政府的边境墙建设合同，它提出了一个很有吸引力的方案：一个快速完成的 2500 万美元项目。

但据一位官员透露，大约六个月后，该公司表示无法像最初提议的那样，建造一个能够快速或低成本地大量生产不育果蝇的大型设施。消息人士还称，官员们担心无法按承诺的成本执行，而且他们的计划可能会引发与转基因果蝇相关的生物安全问题。

美国农业部没有回应有关其对该公司和相关流程的具体批评，但表示其对螺旋蝇问题的应对措施是成功的。

发言人表示：“2026年6月3日，德克萨斯州发现了第一例病例，许多‘专家’和媒体预测会出现大规模虫害，但事实证明该计划奏效了，截至目前，美国只有3例活跃的NWS病例，总共48例。”

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罗林斯公司去年六月宣布计划在德克萨斯州靠近墨西哥边境的地方建厂，但大约十个月后才真正开始行动。据两位知情人士透露，这种拖延令农业界和担忧即将到来的威胁的农民们百思不得其解。

“我们浪费了很多时间听这些推销，”其中一人说道。

美国农业部和陆军工程兵团最终于2026年3月将大部分合同授予了莫滕森建筑公司。施工方于今年4月破土动工。罗林斯近日宣布，该项目比原计划提前了七个月，有望在春季开放。预计耗资7.5亿美元。

在德克萨斯州，即将卸任的农业专员西德·米勒（Sid Miller）——一位共和党人，他在今年早些时候的连任竞选中落败——多次批评他认为反应迟缓且不足。

他在六月份的一份声明中表示：“美国农业部没有利用所有可用的工具，而是行动过于缓慢，仅仅依赖于一个需要数年时间才能完全实施的局部解决方案。”

米勒还表示，农民们可能不愿意报告螺旋蝇病例，因为他们害怕牲畜被隔离。

罗林斯当月回应了米勒的批评，称他的指控“非常不严肃，或许出自一位任期仅剩几个月的不负责任的农业专员之口”。尽管米勒在今年大选前几天赢得了特朗普的背书，但他此前却因一系列涉嫌腐败丑闻而遭到包括共和党籍州长格雷格·阿博特在内的德克萨斯州政界人士的猛烈抨击。

其他与罗林斯会面的德州人则持较为温和的看法。

德克萨斯州农场局主席拉塞尔·博宁告诉CNN，罗林斯在确诊感染螺旋蝇后几周内就开始讨论这个问题。“我的意思是，当时她还在应对禽流感，鸡蛋价格飙升，所以她同时还要处理这些事情，”他说。

“我们当然希望事情进展得更快一些，但事实并非如此，”他补充道。“所以，你知道，现在我们不要再互相指责了。我们只需要尽我们所能，利用好现有的资源。”

美国农业部发言人表示，该机构的做法是“竭尽全力尽快增加产量”。

他们补充说：“所有工作都以惊人的速度推进。”

美国农业部表示，自2月份以来，截至上月底，该公司已在美国-墨西哥边境释放了10亿只不育苍蝇。

尽管罗林斯的批评者抱怨她没有与美国农业部直接合作的经验，但她的农业资历却非常深厚。

她以前是一名律师，来自德克萨斯州沃斯堡郊外的一个小镇的农场。

在 2024 年 Lou Holtz Show 的一次播客采访中，罗林斯（当时是与特朗普结盟的智库“美国优先政策研究所”的所长，该研究所由她与经济学家拉里·库德洛共同创立）回忆起大约十年前和姐姐一起赢得一场抓猪比赛的情景。

“我们制定了策略和计划，这似乎是我人生的一条主线。你必须始终有策略，必须始终有计划，”她告诉这位著名的前橄榄球教练。“我们制定了一个计划，要制服那头野猪——它真是一头又大又野的野猪——把它装进袋子里，然后拖过终点线。”

她在处理政策工作时似乎也采取了类似的策略。与她共事过的人都说她注重细节、务实，专注于达成共识和采取行动。

德克萨斯州农场局的博宁回忆起罗林斯去年召集的一次会议，与会者包括 13 位德克萨斯州州级主管。

他说：“她说，‘我希望你们每个人都能提出一个对你们或你们所在地区来说真正重要的问题。’她把这些问题都记了下来，然后逐一与每个人进行了沟通。”

特朗普的团队在 2016 年首次与她接触，当时她因领导位于奥斯汀的德克萨斯公共政策基金会而声名鹊起，迅速将这个小型保守派智库发展成为一个支持小政府、自由市场的强大机构。

“她常说，这不是一个智库，而是一个行动库。所以她总是专注于将想法付诸实践，”曾在该基金会与她共事的德沃雷说道。

罗林斯在选举日前几个月加入了特朗普的首次总统竞选活动，担任经济顾问，但特朗普获胜后，他拒绝前往华盛顿工作。

直到 2018 年，她才加入他的政府，肩负着将“德克萨斯模式”引入联邦政策的使命。

到 2018 年，罗林斯已晋升为特朗普美国创新办公室主任，后来又领导白宫国内政策委员会，她的职业生涯开始重新回到农业政策领域。

然而，据两位知情人士透露，尽管罗林斯长期以来对特朗普忠心耿耿，但在特朗普第二任期内，她并没有明显的职位空缺。她是特朗普赢得连任时最后一位被提名为内阁成员的人选。

“我有机会的时候就问她，‘农业部长怎么样？’我当时根本不知道她……学过农业，”特朗普今年三月在对农民发表讲话时说。“就算她没学过农业，我也会让她去那里。”

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罗林斯声称，她不确定“是否还能找到比这位总统更支持牧场主、农民和美国农村的人”，而且特朗普自执政以来就完全接受了她所需要的一切。

“我走进椭圆形办公室，对总统说：‘先生，我们的牲畜正面临一个相当严重的威胁，’”罗林斯在六月份向参议院委员会作证时说。“他问：‘那你需要什么？’”

特朗普则表示，罗林斯“做得非常出色”，并称她是一位天生的领导者。

“我一直都说，布鲁克有能力管理世界上任何一家公司。她能管理这些大公司。她是一位杰出的高管，”他在三月份的演讲中说道。

但罗林斯不得不发挥创意，利用该机构的预算来应对特朗普第二个任期内农民们遭遇的诸多困境。

此前有消息人士告诉 CNN，去年，在关税给农民利润带来压力之际，她曾冲进椭圆形办公室，宣布她找到了至关重要的 30 亿美元紧急援助。

政府随后宣布设立120亿美元的救济基金。

另一个潜在的紧急基金方案也摆在了桌面上：上个月，众议院通过了一项救助方案——金额同样为 120 亿美元——现在将由参议院审议。

Ken Cedeno/AFP/Getty Images

以阿肯色州参议员约翰·布兹曼为首的参议院共和党人似乎急于敲定一项纾困方案，因为农民们正在为2027年的播种季做准备。但由于9月份议程满满，包括需要通过一项更广泛的联邦预算或持续拨款决议，该方案的命运仍未可知。

堪萨斯州农民联盟执行主任尼克·莱文多夫斯基表示，对于正在计划下一季播种的农民来说，目前的纾困措施可能来得不够及时。除了伊朗冲突带来的压力外，美国还在与加拿大——农机设备的主要供应国——就贸易协定问题争论不休。

“这些挑战短期内不会消失。可能要到2027年，甚至更久，我们才能看到任何缓解的迹象，再加上关税的影响，”莱文多夫斯基说。“农民和消费者、普通民众一样，正遭受四面八方的挤压。”

尽管牛肉的来源仍存在疑问，但特朗普同意进口牛肉的举动引发了新一轮的不满和共和党人的公开担忧。

堪萨斯州立大学研究肉类定价的农业经济学家格林·汤索尔表示，养牛户“越来越担心政治政策环境的不确定性”。对于一个扩大牛群规模需要5到15年投资的行业来说，这种不确定性尤其成问题。

他说：“大多数人只有在经济回报非常丰厚足以弥补风险，或者能够接受一定程度的有限风险和不确定性时，才会进行多年期投资。” 目前，养牛户们认为这两个条件都无法满足。

“距离中期选举还有71天，但目前我们还没有向农业地区传递任何积极的信息，”即将卸任的北卡罗来纳州参议员汤姆·蒂利斯8月24日告诉记者。“如​​果你认为在一段时间内提供牛肉补贴就能让农民高兴，并使价格系统性下降，那就大错特错了。”

CNN的杰夫·泽莱尼、亚当·坎克林、伊丽莎白·布赫瓦尔德和摩根·里默对本报道亦有贡献。