Want Cheaper Groceries? Stop Making Food More Expensive to Produce

Americans don’t need another politician telling them groceries are expensive. They’re the ones putting something back before heading to the checkout line. What they need and deserve is more than a sarcastic or simplistic answer. By the time dinner gets into your shopping cart, you’re paying for fertilizer, fuel, processing, packaging, refrigeration, and transportation. Government can make that trip easier — or add another expense at every stop.

The Trump administration has been removing some of those obstacles, giving businesses more room to produce and smaller companies more opportunities to compete. Those results deserve consideration in the affordability debate.

Recent polling found that 82 percent of Americans support cutting regulations on farmers and protecting farmland, while 78 percent agree that lowering energy costs can lower grocery costs. Voters seem to understand something that gets lost in political speeches: Making food more expensive to produce is a lousy way to make it cheaper to buy.

Start with fertilizer, which accounts for “33-45 percent of corn and wheat farmers’ operating costs.” Natural gas is a major input in nitrogen fertilizer production, also making fertilizer supply an energy policy issue. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins addressed farmers' concerns about energy and fertilizer costs back in March, noting that, "Because of the president's focus on energy, and energy independence, we're actually, in America, in a much better situation on the pricing of fertilizer than almost the rest of the world. So that's all really good news that you pivot to. But there's still so much to do. We gotta reshore our fertilizer back into America, we're going to be working on that, for the long term." Expanding production here at home would give farmers more options and make them less vulnerable to disruptions overseas.

Follow the food off the farm, and the same situation applies. Services provided by processors, manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers account for “a substantial portion of consumer food prices.” Somebody has to turn wheat into flour, package the bread, and deliver it. Meat needs processing and refrigeration. Trucks need diesel. Stores need electricity. And, there are labor costs all along the way.

Processing regulations also contribute to that bill. In March 2025, USDA moved to extend waivers allowing participating pork and poultry plants to maintain higher processing speeds and eliminated a requirement to submit what the department described as redundant worker-safety data while keeping food-safety standards in place. President Trump’s August call to expand farmers’ and ranchers’ processing options addressed a real question: What choices do producers have when they’re ready to sell? More independent processing capacity could give them another buyer and give customers another supplier.

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Competition enforcement supplies another piece. In May, Trump’s Justice Department announced an Agri Stats settlement targeting exchanges of sensitive information among competing meat processors. DOJ alleged that the arrangement enabled coordinated production decisions and price increases. The settlement terms targeted nonpublic pricing reports and other information-sharing practices; Agri Stats denied wrongdoing.

Keeping productive farmland available matters, too. Taking land out of agricultural use leaves fewer acres available to buy or lease, potentially increasing the cost of starting or expanding a farm. Foreign control adds questions about who makes decisions affecting those resources. USDA reported 46 million acres of foreign-held agricultural land at the end of 2024, and at least some of that land was to be converted from farmland to manufacturing.

For voters deciding who deserves control of Washington, the grocery bill offers a useful test: Are politicians making it easier to produce food and compete for your business, or making you pay for their priorities? The Trump administration’s moves to cut regulatory costs and open up competition address expenses that accumulate long before food reaches the shelf. The high fuel prices we're currently experiencing are a result of dismantling the Islamist Iranian regime won't last forever, but the changes the administration is making in the regulatory state will continue to pay dividends for Americans at the grocery checkout.

Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and bold policies, America’s economy is getting back on track.

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