February 09, 2024

How Low Are Cattle Inventory Numbers & Activists Attack Agriculture

3 minutes

It’s the Ranch It Up Radio Show Herd It Here Weekly Report! This week we take a closer look at the current beef cow herd numbers and how they compare to years past and animal activist groups are becoming extremely aggressive in shutting down animal agriculture. Join Jeff 'Tigger' Erhardt, the Boss Lady Rebecca Wanner aka 'BEC' by subscribing to your favorite podcasting app or on the Ranch It Up Radio Show YouTube Channel.

EPISODE 15 DETAILS

U.S. cattle inventory reaches 73-year low

According to Meating Place, not many ranchers active today will remember the last time the U.S. cattle industry was this small. On January 1, 2024, the All Cattle and Calves inventory was 87.15 million head, the smallest total inventory since 1951. The All Cattle and Calves inventory is 1.9% smaller year over year and is the fifth consecutive year of declining cattle inventories, a total decrease of 7.65 million head or 8.1% since the most recent peak in 2019. The 2023 calf crop was 33.6 million head, down 2.5% year over year and the smallest calf crop since 2014.

The January 1, 2024 beef cow herd inventory was 28.22 million head, down 2.5% year over year and a decrease of 3.47 million head or 10.9% lower, from the cyclical peak in 2019 (Table 1). The current beef cow inventory is the smallest beef cow herd since 1961. Table 1 shows that the top ten beef cow states, which currently represent 57.3% of total beef cows, accounted for 79.4% of the year over year decrease in total beef cow numbers and 67.7% of the decrease from 2019 to 2024.

The inventory of beef replacement heifers on January 1, 2024 was 4.86 million head, down 1.4% year over year. However, the 2023 beef replacement heifer inventory was revised down by 4.5% from the initial value reported one year ago. Thus, the 2024 inventory of beef replacement heifers is down 11.4% from the 2022 inventory and is the smallest beef replacement heifer total since 1950. Since 2001, USDA has provided the portion of beef replacement heifers that are expected to calve in the coming year. The current inventory of these bred beef heifers is 3.05 million head, the smallest in the data back to 2001.

The estimated supply of feeder cattle outside feedlots is calculated by summing the inventories of other heifers, steers >500 pounds and calves <500 pounds and subtracting the inventory of animals already in feedlots. On January 1, 2024, inventories of other heifers, steers, and calves under 500 pounds were all down year over year and feedlot inventories were up 1.6% leading to an estimated supply of feeder cattle outside feedlots of 24.2 million head, down 4.2% from one year ago. The estimated feeder supply can be consistently calculated back to 1972 and the 2024 value is the smallest in that 53-year period.

The smaller cattle inventory is projected to result in a decrease of about five percent in total beef production to roughly 25.5 billion pounds in 2024. That’s three times as much beef as was produced in 1951, the last time the total cattle inventory was this small; impressive growth in productivity in the beef cattle industry. Nevertheless, the current ability to produce beef is smaller than the market potential today and the industry will look to rebuild numbers and increase beef production when conditions allow.

Restaurant and retail partners remain 'under pressure' by animal rights extremists

Any company involved in the production, processing, and retailing of dairy, meat, poultry, eggs, and seafood has at least one thing in common — the potential to be targeted by animal rights extremist organizations. These groups are opposed to people using animals for any purpose, including for food. Among the many tactics used to advance their goal of eliminating animal agriculture and taking animal products off of our plates, one is of primary concern to any consumer-facing food brand (and those that supply them) — pressure campaigns and pushing for “incremental changes” which they claim are in the name of animal welfare or sustainability.

Legislative efforts have been a mainstay of extremist campaigns, but in recent years animal rights extremists have discovered a quicker way to exert influence on animal agriculture that cuts out the patchwork of state-level regulations on animal care dictated by ballot initiative campaigns. By pressuring restaurant, retail, and food service brands to adopt certain policies, these organizations are able to force the implementation of supplier requirements under the guise of animal welfare or sustainability — even if the policy does not truly benefit animals or the planet.

The underlying motive of their requested changes or demands, which are almost always very costly for farmers to implement, is to make food production less efficient and increase food costs, forcing consumers to make tough choices about what they can afford. Tactics employed in pressure campaigns include social media posts, “silent protests” outside of stores, delivering petitions to corporate headquarters, and even purchasing website domain names of company employees and board members in an attempt to tarnish their personal reputations.

Major trends in pressure campaigns in 2023 included a focus on “enforcement” (in quotes because activist groups do not truly have authority to enforce anything) of previous commitments on sow and laying hen housing, and a push for additional companies to adopt broiler welfare policies in line with the so-called “Better Chicken Commitment” (again in quotes, as “better” doesn’t really seem to be science-based, feasible or sustainable). We also saw a shift recently to activist groups coming out and incentivizing shifts to plant-based offerings in their scorecard reports, which pit brands against one another based on their public policies. This makes the true intentions of these groups quite clear and should discourage brands who are interested in keeping all options on the menu from considering engagement.

Any brand that sources meat, poultry, dairy, eggs, or seafood could find itself in the crosshairs of an activist pressure campaign and should take steps proactively to safeguard its reputation. This means developing animal welfare and sustainability policies that truly reflect the values of the company and its customers, working collaboratively with suppliers and third-party experts, and establishing an approach for responding to (ideally, ignoring) outreach from animal rights organizations.