U.S. Cattle Ranchers Endure More Drought, Rising Feed Prices

Brown shoots of a fast-growing weed stretch across the high-plains pasture of Gerald Schreiber’s 5,000-acre cattle ranch, located near a crossroads named Last Chance, Colo. A half-inch of rain the night before was the first Schreiber had seen in two months. He examines the gray matted clumps that should have been sprouting rich green native grasses by now and worries about his future.

Despite record supermarket prices (sirloin is up 148 percent from 20 years ago), the 723,000 ranchers with 500 head or fewer who provide 83 percent of America’s beef face a squeeze unlike any since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Ranchers in the high plains east of the Rockies have suffered through three years of drought, wildfire, and rising costs. Corn has jumped from $2 per bushel to nearly $8 since 2005. Even the price of silage,​a sweet-smelling mix of hay, straw, and chopped cornstalks used as livestock feed, has doubled over the past few years. The size of the U.S. beef cattle herd, at 89.3 million, is at its lowest since the 1950s.