CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, Ill. (RFD-TV) — After years of declining herds, there are signs that the cattle industry may be poised to grow again. According to University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign ag economist Brittney Kay Goodrich, a new cattle cycle may be taking shape.
“We’re at what I would say is the end of the previous cattle cycle, but potentially the beginning—or we’re almost at the rebuilding stage, or in the expansionary stage of a new cattle cycle,” Goodrich said. “Producers have obviously been seeing record-setting prices over the last number of months. We’ve had the lowest cattle herd size since the 1960s. There’s not a lot of cattle out there, so that’s really driving those prices higher.”
But even with those strong prices, Goodrich says drought conditions are still holding many producers back from rebuilding their herds.
“We haven’t seen any expansion in the cattle herd at this time, and part of that again is because we’ve seen the Drought Monitor here in Illinois, and it looks a lot worse than it did two weeks ago,” she explained. “And so, the drought makes those input costs of keeping cattle really high, and so then it looks a lot better to sell those feeder calves off and not expand your herd size. But it is anticipated that eventually, producers will start increasing these herd sizes again, and we will start to see the start of a new cattle cycle that will probably start in 2026.”
Goodrich said that improving pasture conditions and lowering feed costs must occur before herd rebuilding really gains momentum — signs she expects to see within the next year or two.
Supporting Livestock Producers With Wildfire Mitigation
We are still in the middle of wildfire season in the Western U.S., and grazing can help manage rangelands. However, industry leaders with the Public Lands Council (PLC) and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) say that producers with federal grazing permits are facing new challenges in their efforts to mitigate wildfire risks.
“Over the last 20 years, really, we’ve seen a massive explosion in catastrophic wildfires,” said Kaitlynn Glover, PLC Executive Director and NCBA Executive Director of Government Affairs. “Fire generally can be a really good tool, right? We use prescribed fire. We recognize that fire has an important ecosystem role, but when they burn so hot, so fast, and so large, you see again, sort of a conversion of some of these landscapes into annual grasses. Do you see challenges to tree regeneration in some of these more forested ecosystems?”
Like prescribed burns, Glover explains, targeted grazing can also be used as a tool to mitigate the risk of uncontrolled wildfire.
“And so, the PLC has been really focused on a few things and has successfully worked with a number of members of Congress on a bipartisan basis to include more direction and more facilitation to the agencies to do targeted grazing, to do prescribed grazing, to use grazing as that fine fuels management tool,” she said.
Glover says the people who hold federal land permits often wear many hats—many serving as first responders in addition to their roles as farmers and ranchers. She said the PLC is working to expand tools and resources for them, with a significant focus on strengthening partnerships with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service.
