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America’s Cattle Crisis

  • Writer: Michael "Richard" MacGregor
    Michael "Richard" MacGregor
  • 2 days ago
  • 4 min read

America’s ability to feed itself has long been one of its greatest strengths. From family ranches stretching across the Plains to independent cattlemen supplying local processors, beef production was once decentralized, resilient, and deeply rooted in American communities. Today, that system is under growing strain, and the warning signs are no longer theoretical.


Over the past several decades, the United States has lost hundreds of thousands of farms, a decline documented repeatedly by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and farm advocacy groups. According to USDA Economic Research Service data, the number of U.S. farms has steadily decreased, falling to approximately 1.88 million farms by 2024. Between 2017 and 2022 alone, more than 140,000 farms disappeared, underscoring how rapidly small and mid sized operations are being squeezed out. While no single source confirms the precise figure of 600,000 ranches closing since the early 1990s, multiple USDA linked analyses confirm that the long term loss is substantial and ongoing.


At the same time ranchers are disappearing, the meat processing industry has become increasingly concentrated. Today, four corporations JBS, Tyson Foods, Cargill, and National Beef dominate the U.S. beef processing market, controlling the vast majority of slaughter capacity. This level of consolidation is widely acknowledged by policymakers across the political spectrum and has been cited by the White House itself as a structural vulnerability. When only a handful of firms control processing, ranchers lose bargaining power, consumers face price volatility, and the entire food system becomes more fragile in the face of labor disruptions, disease outbreaks, or logistical shocks.


Labor itself represents another point of instability. While it would be inaccurate to state that the major meat processors officially rely on illegal labor as policy, it is well documented that the meat and agricultural sectors depend heavily on vulnerable labor pools. Federal enforcement actions, including recent high profile cases involving illegal child labor by sanitation contractors operating inside meatpacking plants, have exposed deep systemic problems. Policymakers and industry leaders alike acknowledge that abrupt labor disruptions could quickly ripple through the food supply, affecting both prices and availability.


Adding to the pressure on ranchers is the federal government’s expansion of animal traceability requirements. In 2024, USDA finalized a rule mandating electronic identification EID ear tags for certain cattle and bison moving across state lines, effective November 5, 2024. While the stated goal is faster disease containment, many small ranchers argue the rule imposes disproportionate costs. Individual EID tags may cost only a few dollars, but compliant readers, software systems, and workflow changes can cost thousands, creating a real financial and administrative burden for smaller operations that already operate on thin margins.


Meanwhile, despite possessing vast grazing land and a strong ranching tradition, the United States continues to import large quantities of beef. In 2024 alone, the U.S. imported roughly 1.013 billion pounds of beef, equivalent to about 459,000 metric tons annually, or nearly 9,000 metric tons per week on average. Imports themselves are not inherently negative, but from a food security standpoint, dependence on foreign supply while domestic producers struggle raises serious strategic questions, especially during a period of global instability.


Biological threats are also re emerging. New World screwworm, a parasitic fly eradicated from the United States in the mid twentieth century through a massive federal effort, is once again a concern near the southern border. USDA APHIS and Reuters have reported renewed containment measures, including sterile fly releases, to prevent northward spread into Texas and beyond. For ranchers, this is not an abstract risk. Screwworm infestations can devastate herds quickly and require coordinated national response.


Land pressure compounds these challenges. High profile land acquisitions by ultra wealthy individuals have drawn attention to the changing ownership landscape. Jeff Bezos, for example, reportedly owns approximately 460,000 acres, largely ranchland in Texas. While much of this land is not traditional cropland, the broader trend reflects rising land values that make entry and expansion increasingly difficult for working ranchers. At the same time, data centers and bitcoin mining facilities, particularly in states like Texas, are consuming large tracts of rural land and infrastructure capacity, often clashing with agricultural communities over land use, water, noise, and energy.


Taken together, these pressures reveal a multi faceted national crisis. Ranch closures, industry consolidation, regulatory burdens, labor instability, biological threats, rising imports, land concentration, and industrial land conversion are not isolated problems. They interact. Each one weakens the others. And collectively, they raise a fundamental question. Can a nation that cannot sustain its own food producers truly be secure.


Food security is not nostalgia. It is not sentimentality. It is a matter of national resilience. If Americans want a food system that endures, not one optimized solely for efficiency and quarterly profits, then policies must once again place value on domestic production, independent ranchers, and the strategic importance of feeding our own people with American food.


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