Shrinking Cattle Herd May Continue Until Fall of 2024

With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.

The U.S. cattle herd is the smallest it’s been in a long time. Lance Zimmerman, senior beef and cattle market analyst for Rabobank, says producers are still contracting their herd sizes…

“2023 will be the fourth year of cowherd contraction. By the time we get our January 1 cattle inventory report, I'd expect the beef cow herd to be probably another 500,000 head, 600,000 head below last year's number. In total, three million head since the 2019 highs, and it's even though cattle prices are exceptional right now, whether it's baby calf prices, weaned calf prices, or fed cattle prices, they’re 40-50 percent above a year ago.”

The contraction is continuing unabated for one reason…

“We still have drought, and what I always tell folks is, yeah, California may be looking better, other areas of the country may have moisture that hasn't for a long time. When it comes to the nation's coward, you watch that area states from Texas up to South Dakota and then over to Iowa and down to Arkansas. Those eight states represent 50 percent of the beef cows in the U.S. If that area’s under drought, the cowherd is in distress. We're still fighting that drought even though we've transitioned to El Nino.”

As we continue to watch the story unfold, Zimmerman says producers are feeling some frustration because they can’t take better advantage of higher cattle prices.