LINCOLN, NEBRASKA (RFD NEWS) — U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins is in Nebraska on Monday surveying wildfire damage from the air, joining state and federal leaders for an aerial tour of the massive Morrill and Cottonwood Wildfires.
Following the flight, officials are expected to receive on-the-ground briefings and meet with firefighters, emergency crews, and impacted ranchers. A press briefing is scheduled afterward.
According to state officials, the wildfires have scorched nearly 820,000 acres across the state, destroying pastureland that supports an estimated 40,000 cows. The losses come as drought and high feed costs have already slowed efforts to rebuild the U.S. cattle herd.
Ranchers say replacing lost grazing land could take years, with some forced to move cattle out of state or sell off herds entirely. Industry leaders warn that the damage could delay production increases needed to ease record-high beef prices.
Livestock production is the largest industry in Nebraska, a state where cows outnumber people 4:1, and it is the second-largest producer in the country.
As of November 2025, Nebraska posted 2.64 million head on feed — edging ahead of Texas at 2.63 million and Kansas at 2.46 million. Nebraska also led in marketings and continues to benefit from concentrated feedyard capacity, strong processor access, and a robust corn supply. So, the impact of the recent wildfires on cattle and grazing land in Nebraska will be even more far-reaching than the impact on that state alone.
March Cattle-on-Feed Signals More Pressure on U.S. Herd Rebuild
The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Cattle-on-Feed report for March shows supplies remain tight, with 11.55 million head on feed — roughly unchanged from last year — while February marketings dropped 7 percent, marking one of the lowest totals since 1996.
Analyst Brian Hoops with Midwest Market Solutions says demand for beef is beginning to soften, even as imports rise to fill supply gaps.
“Demand is starting to slow,” Hoops explains. “One of the things, USDA [noted] in their numbers earlier last week, a lot of cattle being imported in, beef being imported into the United States, well above what we’ve seen, on an export basis. A lot of that’s coming out of Argentina and Brazil. Some of it’s also coming from Mexico, but we’re importing a lot of beef to make up for that shortfall in our U.S. supplies. And, along the lines here, demand is starting to weaken in a lot of areas.”
However, Hoops said that grilling season is just around the corner, which means some demand is likely to return with seasonal flows.
Dr. David Anderson with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service joined us on Monday’s Market Day Report to break down the latest data and market implications.
In his interview with RFD News, Anderson discussed whether the report aligned with industry expectations and what factors are contributing to the current numbers. He also addressed any market impacts tied to the latest data.
Anderson also weighed in on the ongoing recovery from Nebraska wildfires and whether disruptions in a major cattle-producing state could create ripple effects for the broader market. Finally, he outlined what he is watching moving forward as conditions continue to evolve across the cattle sector.
Packer Investigation Heats Up
Meanwhile, scrutiny of the beef industry is intensifying in Washington. R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard says new federal efforts to investigate price-fixing align with ongoing legal action targeting major meatpackers.
“Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will be introducing legislation to break up the Packers,” Bullard says. “The first thing they were going to do was prohibit packers from maintaining separate species within their production cycle. In other words, where the large packers now control beef, pork, and chicken, apparently, this bill is going to require them to select just one. Large packers can only have one line of meat protein.”
The industry’s “Big Four” Packers — JBS, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and National Beef Packing Company — currently control about 85 percent of U.S. beef processing, up sharply from 36 percent in 1980. Bullard says lawmakers are also weighing legislation that could break up large packers and limit market concentration, with oversight potentially handled by the Federal Trade Commission.
“We’ve got an antitrust issue being worked through in the judicial system,” Bullard continues. “We have the executive branch, which has been calling for investigations into the concentration issue, and now we have Congress weighing in. So, all three branches of government are now intensely focused on this issue of unprecedented concentration that is limiting competition within the entire beef supply chain. And of course, that is harmful.”
