The beef cattle inventory in the United States is at its lowest point since 1962, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The USDA’s biannual cattle report showed that, as of Jan. 1, 2023, there is a 89.3 million head inventory — which is three percent lower than the total from a year ago and the lowest since 2015. Of that number, 38.3 million cows and heifers have calved.
Additionally, there are 28.9 million beef cows, which are those explicitly bred for slaughter and meat sales, as of the start of this year — which is down nearly four percent from last year and the lowest the agency has recorded since 1962.
According to Beef Magazine, some challenges and reasons for the decline in beef cows appear to be the input prices and the drought last year. The magazine’s Ryan McGeeney wrote:
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.
University of Kentucky’s Kenny Burdine and James Mitchell, extension livestock economist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, recently explained that “There was no question that the beef cow herd had gotten smaller” and that the cattle production’s downward trend does not seem like it will reverse in 2023.”
“There is a pretty substantial biological lag in the beef supply chain,” Mitchell noted. “What consumers experience at the grocery store is a product of what cattle producers were going through a year or two ago. It takes about two years for a new calf to become the steak on your dinner plate.”
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How much has the population grown since 1962 ? That compounds things.
And how much has America been de-agrarianized and urbanized and universitized and sissified and doped and infantilized? We need millions of young folks to choose farming, not SJW/Marx studies and phone apps/gaming, instead of quantifiable, productive real work.
“We need millions of young folks to choose farming”.
Good luck in finding them.
You can’t afford to farm if you don’t inherit one
It is easier to find a million young people to eat ze bugs instead…..
Not to worry, cricket and grasshopper production is way up! (Sarc)
They had some G. Beef at the supermarket yesterday. “On sale” $3.00 package. Seemed like a good price(too good), then it kinda looked just a touch different. (Lean Ground Beef). I put it back down as I wondered if this was a covid “protected” cow….
I expect to see major market fluctuations in most things going forward. The way to minimize the impact of this is to have adequate stores. Meat in a deep freeze will last up to 4 years, so a chest freezer is now basically a necessity. It allows you to stock up when on sale, usually during holidays, and to ride periods of scarcity or high costs.
Not to worry Bill Gates says fake meat is the way of the future! You can trust him because he has done so well with vaccines don’t cha know.
Lab-Grown Meat Is Made of Cancer Cells. Would You Like It Rare or Medium?
USDA does not allow animal tumors to enter food chain. But lab-grown meat is made of tumor cells
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/lab-grown-meat-is-made-of-cancer?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=441185&post_id=104530309&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
I believe The USDA is a Full Spectrum Food Destruction Operation: If you want food production destroyed overnight anywhere in the world , to borrow a phrase from the Marines, call on the US government. I believe it purposely makes every effort to make the production of food as expensive and difficult for producers (farmers/ranchers) as possible. When FJB became POTUS, shooting deer eating crops became a Felony; there is no exception, shoot one and face $50,000 fines, loss of your guns and voting Rights, and time in prison. The USDA makes it as difficult as possible for the producer to achieve any direct farm to table sales (farmer to consumer). The rules for preparing food for the consumer to purchase are made as onerous as possible so the producer is forced to sell raw products to large corporations for processing, and I believe conspires to keep the producer’s price below current production costs. I believe 14,000 cattlemen quit in 2022 and the USDA and large corporations wanted it to reduce cattle stock and drive prices higher. TPTB can easily slow or stop meat imports anytime they want and they will when famine stalks America. As a soldier in a third world country, I saw livestock being slaughtered in the open with flies buzzing all over the place; the cut meat was hung on hooks or laid on tables with no refrigeration. No-one got sick much less died from that , and I ate my share of delicious local foods with no ill effects. I believe the large batch methods employed by our food manufacturers are actually more dangerous. I believe the USDA is as dedicated to consumer food safety as the CDC is dedicated to our medical health.
That our government has declared war on us is now obvious, it is time to prepare for a long siege…