Speaking of looking like an idiot, prove who is at fault for the drought that accelerated the heard decline, that caused today's high prices,.
One important distinction
If you're looking at a chart that shows the cattle herd declining from 2019 → 2026, I would characterize the causes approximately as:
Structural cattle cycle: 🟡 started the contraction
Drought: 🔴 major accelerant
High feed/hay costs: 🔴 reinforced liquidation
Cow slaughter / reduced heifer retention: 🔴 directly reduced future supply
Biological lag: 🔴 prevented rapid recovery
Strong beef demand: 🟠 kept prices high and intensified the shortage
Mexican cattle screw worm import interruption: 🟠 made the 2025–26 supply situation even tighter, but did not cause the original herd decline.
So if you're trying to identify the single event that “started” the decline, I'd say 2019 was the cyclical turning point; the severe drought beginning around 2020–21 was the major event that transformed the normal cattle-cycle contraction into the unusually deep herd liquidation we're still dealing with in 2026.
By
krom ·
