U.S. beef cattle inventory lowest since 1962
U.S. beef herd down due to input prices and drought.

Ryan McGeeney
February 27, 2023
3 Min Read

In its bi-annual cattle report, USDA reported a total of 89.3 million head as of Jan. 1, 2023 — 3% lower than the total reported a year ago, and the lowest since 2015. Beef cattle — those bred specifically for slaughter and meat sales — declined 3.6%, to 28.9 million head, the lowest total recorded by the agency since 1962.ERDINHASDEMIR/GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO


STEEP DECLINE — In its bi-annual cattle report, USDA reported a total of 89.3 million head as of Jan. 1, 2023 — 3 percent lower than the total reported a year ago, and the lowest since 2015. Beef cattle — those bred specifically for slaughter and meat sales — declined 3.6 percent, to 28.9 million head, the lowest total recorded by the agency since 1962. (USDA)

For many producers throughout the country, 2022 had offered a perfect storm of economic and weather-related challenges: input costs such as diesel and fertilizer doubling or even tripling, and a hot, dry summer that only increased reliance on groundwater in the absence of rainfall. For cattle producers in particular, drought conditions offered no replenishment of dwindling forage supplies, leaving many producers to cull deeper into their herds than they might have otherwise preferred. Elevated beef cull prices contributed to an 11% increase in beef cow slaughter, according to USDA.

As Mitchell recently pointed out, however, the reduced supply combined with steady demand from the U.S. consumer at least meant greater profitability for those producers with stock to sell.

Source: University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture

Drought my foot.  This is engineered so that we have to eat bugs.

I have to comment, as the TRUTH is always important.  In my nearly 72 years, having been raised on a farm with livestock (milk and beef cattle, hogs ... chickens also, but only for our consumption), and having spent nearly all my working career in the cattle industry, the above is one of the most uninformed, untrue, and ignorant things I've ever read.

While dairy and cattle feeding (feed lots finishing steers for slaughter) operations utilize a variety of stored forages, grains, and proteins (a large portion of which are produced on irrigated lands) legitimate cow-calf ranches are usually exclusively reliant on non-irrigated grass lands for grazing, usually land not suitable for growing anything else.  Any other feeding options are just not cost effective nor sustainable.

When there is a very dry spring and summer ranchers need to sell down their herds to what the lower grass supply can support.  This will often result in a short term dip in retail prices because of a larger than normal supply on the market.  Come fall fewer calves will be coming to market and they may be lighter weight because their mom's produced less milk due to less grass.  The lower supply will push prices up.  Droughts usually last more than one season.  When abundant rains return it takes a couple of years to build the cow herds back up.  This cycle has been repeating since Old Testament times.  Does the responder think that was "engineered" also?

There were also higher calf loses this year because of harsher than normal late winter conditions during calving season on the plains (I don't know about Montana).  In case someone brings it up, as the "city folk" and their suburban and small acreage cousins drive about and see happy momma cows and their babies frolicking on lush, irrigated pastures, and fancy barns for winter ... those are hobby farms, NOT real-world agriculture.

Parts of the country are experiencing droughts, which will likely affect beef and other commodity prices.  On the other hand, Canada produces WAY MORE beef (relative to their population) than even the most serious carnivore could consume.  Trade agreements can be adjusted to allow more imports.  Despite these natural cycles, the United States is among the top three exporting countries of beef, chicken, and pork.  We can always hold back some supply if needed.

https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/animal-products/cattle-beef/market-outlook/

News articles like these from the OP are more than likely just propaganda meant to disinform and---especially---demoralize. It certainly grabs peoples' attention though

Except that you have no idea what you are talking about, as evinced by the fact that:

1) Moneil's comment was directed toward Ladialaus, not me (i.e., "the respondant" being Lad's comment to my OP);

2) The source of that article is a 100+ year-old agricultural marketing group;

3) The article contains facts (i.e., there are no untruths in it).

I have to comment, as the TRUTH is always important.  In my nearly 72 years, having been raised on a farm with livestock (milk and beef cattle, hogs ... chickens also, but only for our consumption), and having spent nearly all my working career in the cattle industry, the above is one of the most uninformed, untrue, and ignorant things I've ever read.

Most of those 72 years were lived before this latest agenda to destroy the US food supply.  Evidently you haven't been paying attention.  For some time they were sabotaging chicken feed so that chickens stopped laying eggs, food processing plants are being destroyed by magical airplane strikes and fires from unknown causes, many chickens were destroyed under the false pretenses of "bird flu", farmers are being paid by the government to destroy milk, crops, and livestock ... and Klaus has announced that we'll be eating bugs in the future.  All just a series of coincidences.

This isn't a question of your experience, but a question of the fact that the government is lying to us and all their stats are bogus.

Snap out of it, man.

And, no, dxcat, this isn't just "made up" by "alt media".
https://time.com/5843136/covid-19-food-destruction/

Now, as experts warn that the economic effects of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic could be comparable to the Great Depression in the U.S. and around the world, and as the International Monetary Fund predicts that the “Great Lockdown” could cause the worst recession since the 1930s, similar scenes of crop destruction have taken place, with reports of U.S. farmers having to make difficult choices to dump their milk, slaughter their livestock and smash their eggs.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/business/coronavirus-destroying-food.html

In Wisconsin and Ohio, farmers are dumping thousands of gallons of fresh milk into lagoons and manure pits. An Idaho farmer has dug huge ditches to bury one million pounds of onions. And in South Florida, a region that supplies much of the Eastern half of the United States with produce, tractors are crisscrossing bean and cabbage fields, plowing perfectly ripe vegetables back into the soil.

After weeks of concern about shortages in grocery stores and mad scrambles to find the last box of pasta or toilet paper roll, many of the nation’s largest farms are struggling with another ghastly effect of the pandemic. They are being forced to destroy tens of millions of pounds of fresh food that they can no longer sell.
...
The amount of waste is staggering. The nation’s largest dairy cooperative, Dairy Farmers of America, estimates that farmers are dumping as many as 3.7 million gallons of milk each day. A single chicken processor is smashing 750,000 unhatched eggs every week.

I guess that because of the "Great COVID Recession" people need to eat less suddenly.  We could go on for pages on the mysterious destruction of food processing plants, with two of the succuмbing to airplane strikes within a week.

.

New York to track and limit public meat consumption:

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/nyc-track-food-purchases-meat-cap-carbon-emissions/

I wish I lived in Russia where they can eat meat.

The drought is so bad here in the Midwest that cattle ranchers are indeed selling their cattle.

I have a friend who instead of selling their herd, sent them down to Oklahoma to graze in rented pasture because their pastures weren’t growing this spring because of the winter drought.
Just the other day I was asking my dad, who is a rancher, when he was going to put his cattle out to pasture and he said he can’t do it because the grass just isn’t growing- not enough moisture. He is burning through his hay reserves FAST.

Pray for us farmers and ranchers in the heartland!

Interesting.  In Minnesota, we just got over flood warnings, and some places still have them.

https://weather.com/weather/alerts/localalerts/l/Minneapolis+MN?canonicalCityId=c41f9794b3d2e73e76735276a2b073711dc220e4944a75a2ab0f9b91e91472d0