Sometimes when you write a column like this you feel like a broken record. It seems that some themes keep coming back over and over again.

Case in point - is something fundamental happening in the U.S. cattle industry?

A little over a year ago, I wrote a blog asking if beef production was at a turning point in the Southern Plains (you can check it out at https://wordpress. com/post/southernplainsperspective.wordpress. com/576 if you’re interested). In that piece, I talked about how a report from Texas A&M pointed out that when ranchers were culling herds during the extreme dry conditions in 2021 and 2022, they were taking more heifers to the sale barn than they did during the drought that ran from 2011 to 2015. The premise was that while there was a huge selloff of cattle during both droughts, more replacement heifers were maintained in 2011-15 in the hope of rebuilding herds when conditions got better. This time, even if conditions miraculously improved, it would take longer for cattle numbers to recover just because the females needed to rebuild the herd simply weren’t there.

That got me thinking - is it possible that some older cattle producers were calling it quits? Understand, I have nothing to go on other than a gut feeling, but think about it - the average age of agriculture producers in the United States is around 57. That means that half of all farmers and ranchers are older than that.

If you were in your 60’s or 70’s during the drought of 2011-15 and made it through those record conditions (which most folks thought would be once in a generation) only to get hit with another extreme drought just a decade later, wouldn’t you think twice about sticking around? You could get out, rent (or sell) your land and try to enjoy what few golden years you have left. If you’re getting older and it looks like you’re going to have to fight this battle all over again, do you really want to?

Fast forward this month to an article from Reuters talking about how we currently have the lowest cattle herd since 1962 and how meat exports from the United States continue to shrink. On top of that, noted livestock market economist Dr. Derrell Peel was quoted this week in the Oklahoma Farm Report as saying that the beef cow herd may shrink to the lowest levels since 1961. He went on to say that there currently is no pipeline of replacement heifers and that when we do start rebuilding the herd, it will be at least a two-year process to get those heifers into production.

Now please don’t get me wrong. I am not writing off the beef industry in the Southern Plains. Someone, somewhere will bring cattle into production to help fill the demand of the U.S. market. That said, what if we really are seeing a shift out of the industry by many older producers? Are we going to see a new crop of younger ranchers come forward or just more consolidation in the industry? Will this demand be filled by beef from outside the United States? Throw into the mix the changing climate and the weather conditions that caused this sell-off in the first place (two droughts like this so close together?) and you start to see how we could be in for some real issues moving forward.

This is something policy makers at the state and federal level need to be watching. The beef industry has a huge impact on Oklahoma and the region - we need to maintain a strong cattle production sector if for no other reason than to help our rural economy.

Throw into the mix that we are going to have to feed around 10 billion people by mid-century. When you consider that less than one fourth of the planet consists of dry land and that less than a quarter of that can actually be cultivated for crops humans can eat (and that a lot of our best farmland is already under our major cities) with the rest of the land only able to produce food if it’s utilized by animals, it becomes obvious that beef and other livestock protein will have to be part of the solution to feed all those people.

This could just be another cattle cycle - then again, we could be witnessing a paradigm shift. Either way I think it would be helpful if policy makers and opinion shapers gave the situation some thought.

- Clay Pope is a natural resource consultant. The opinions expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of his current or former employers. You can read more from Clay and listen to his podcast at https://southernplainsperspective.wordpress. com/.