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.
Ranchers working to recover from recent wildfires face not only the immediate loss of forage and livestock but also a complex landscape of legal and tax considerations.
RFD farm legal expert Roger McEowen joined us on Monday’s Market Day Report to discuss the challenges ranchers encounter as they navigate disaster programs and IRS regulations following wildfire losses.
In his interview with RFD News, McEowen highlighted key tax issues ranchers need to keep in mind, reviewed USDA programs designed to assist livestock owners after fire-related losses, and provided insight on the evolving legal framework governing the food system, including changes affecting labeling and regulatory mandates.
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.
Livestock production is considered the largest industry in Nebraska, a state where cows outnumber people 4:1. Nebraska’s cattle industry and grazing lands are the second-largest beef producer in the country and lead in fed-cattle production.
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 benefited from concentrated feedyard capacity, strong processor access, and a robust corn supply.
So, the recent wildfires there will impact not only ranchers in Nebraska but also have far-reaching effects on the U.S. cattle and beef industry’s overall effort to rebuild the U.S. cattle herd.
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.”
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.”
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.
