For Immediate Release: September 11, 2026
Contact: R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard
Phone: 406-252-2516; r-calfusa@r-calfusa.com
Please find below R-CALF USA’s weekly opinion/commentary that explains the precarious nature of cow/calf financial returns over the past 15 years. It is in three formats: written, audio and video. Anyone is welcome to use it for broadcasting or reporting.
Stronger Cattle Prices Cannot Hide a Vulnerable Cow/Calf Sector
Commentary by Bill Bullard, CEO, R-CALF USA
Some folks in Washington, D.C., believe last year’s stronger cattle prices mean the cow/calf sector of the U.S. cattle supply chain is healthy. But prices alone do not tell us whether ranch families can afford to stay in business—or whether the next generation can afford to enter.
USDA’s numbers over the past 15 years reveal a sector in a precarious position: fewer operations, fewer breeding cows, severe price volatility, and years in which cattle prices barely covered operating costs, let alone the full economic cost of keeping cattle on the land.
Between the 2012 and 2022 agricultural censuses, the United States lost more than 105,000 farms reporting beef cows. That is roughly one in seven operations.
Between January 2011 and January 2025, the beef cow herd declined by approximately 3 million head. Then, during 2025, it fell by another 285,000 cows—even as operating returns improved sharply.
Those losses should challenge any claim that high prices alone have restored the sector’s health.
Consider the financial history as reported in USDA’s cow/calf production costs and returns report.
In 2014, gross production value averaged about 1,020 dollars per cow. By 2019, it had fallen to 571 dollars. Then in 2025, it reached approximately 1,417 dollars per cow.
That is a substantial recovery. It is also a reminder of how dramatically earning conditions can and have changed within the cow/calf sector.
A rancher who retains heifers or buys equipment today must pay the costs before knowing what future calves will bring. Feed, repairs, fuel and maintenance cannot simply stop when cattle values fall.
On a national average, ranch operating costs increased about 25 percent between 2011 and 2025, with the highest cost increases occurring for feed, repairs, interest and veterinary expenses. Full economic costs increased approximately 43 percent.
The largest dollar increases came from the assigned value of unpaid labor and from capital recovery—the costs associated with maintaining and replacing productive assets, including equipment, facilities and the breeding herd.
This matters because a ranch can cover its immediate operating needs while failing to adequately compensate the family’s work or provide for its long-term productive resources.
That is precisely the distinction missing when an operating surplus is described as profit.
Take an illustrative 100-cow operation using USDA’s national averages.
In 2022, production value exceeded operating expenses by only about 2,000 dollars for the entire herd—before allocated overhead.
In 2025, that operating surplus increased to approximately 73,000 dollars. But after full economic costs, the account still showed a shortfall of roughly 34,500 dollars.
That is not necessarily a cash loss. Some costs are imputed, and individual ranches differ. Nevertheless, it raises a serious question: Is the ranch business generating enough to reward the work and sustain the resources it depends on?
At the national average, production value failed to cover full economic costs in every year from 2011 through 2025.
The combination of that record and the shrinking producer base makes a compelling case for structural change.
The objective should be an industry in which efficient producers can withstand downturns, reinvest, and make a credible living over time.
Now, unlike many of the major commodities that rely on government price supports, the cow/calf sector does not, and its ability to address the squeeze between volatile cattle values and continuing expenses depends on a fully functioning and robustly competitive marketplace. That is what has been lacking in cattle markets, and that is why so many ranchers and their mother cows have exited the industry. It’s also why there have been so few new ranchers entering the sector.
Restoring competition and price discovery must be a national priority. Ranchers need confidence that their markets are competitive, transparent and free from abusive market power emanating from the beef supply chain’s highly concentrated beef packer and retailing sectors.
Success for the cow/calf sector must be measured by far more than this year’s cattle price. It should include financially sustainable operations, opportunities for new producers and a breeding herd capable of supporting future production.
High prices can provide breathing room. They cannot, by themselves, repair years of weak returns or bring departed operations back.
If rebuilding the U.S. cow herd is a national objective, sustaining the people and businesses that maintain it must be part of that objective. The warning is already visible in the numbers. The response needs to reach beyond the next favorable market year.
This is why we must urge Congress to enact mandatory country of origin labeling for beef, why we must urge this administration to continue the past administration’s work on implementing the Packers and Stockyards Act, why our antitrust laws must be enforced, and why we must begin managing price-depressing imports.
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R-CALF USA’s weekly opinion/commentary educates and informs both consumers and producers about timely issues important to the U.S. cattle and sheep industries and rural America.
Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA) is the largest producer-only trade association in the United States. It is a national, nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring the continued profitability and viability of the U.S. cattle and sheep industries. For more information, visit www.r-calfusa.com or call 406-252-2516.