Ranchers have always had to cultivate a sense of stoicism to make it in the profession. As the specter of drought looms large over central Colorado, the price of beef on international markets provides a backstop to ranchers if the rain doesnāt come in May.
The market price of beef has risen 40% since January of 2024, and despite several tariff-free large imports ordered by the White House to bring in Brazilian and Argentinian beef (which is then marked and sold with a USA label) to lower prices, beef has bounced back to an all-time price record now at $2.50 per pound live weight for finished steers. With oil prices rising, it has also driven up the price of beef due to the anticipated costs of raising feedlot corn.
But local ranches are mostly what are called cow-calf operations. This is where ranchers raise calves through the summer and fall when the high-quality mountain grasses are growing and sell those larger calves in the fall or spring to markets in eastern Colorado. Buyers from these operations are known as stockers (who raise the cattle for almost another year on wheat, corn, or alfalfa fields that have been harvested) or feedlots continue to feed the cattle in the high plains. These are eventually harvested by large beef packers (butchers) in Greely, Nebraska, or Kansas.
Costs for cow-calf ranchers are often more flexible to control compared to the next phase of growing cattle, where stockers and feedlots are at the mercy of feed prices.
The past few years have been the first time since 2010 that ranchers have been able to turn a significant profit on their calves, and the prices have remained resilient despite a flood of cheap foreign beef imports into the United States ordered by President Donald Trump.
But the specter of drought may mean that local ranchers decided to take advantage of the high prices and lack of grass this summer and sell parts of their herd. Across the United States, the beef cattle herd size has remained at lows not seen since the 1940s, almost a century ago. Cattle have been bred to be larger than those raised back then, but the size of the herd has not rebounded over the past five years since the COVID pandemic whipsawed beef prices from almost record lows to record highs.
Herd size shrinkage is well-documented for two main reasons. First, the average age of ranchers is 65. Second, the cost for younger ranchers to get started is so high, it is nearly impossible to buy or even rent land. In the last 20 years, the average price of all farmland, including pasture land, has increased by 400%.
Locally, land sells for its scenic value rather than its production capacity. Prices hover around $6,500 per acre, making it impossibly expensive for new ranchers to buy land for a cattle operation.
Land prices show no sign of dropping, so younger generations have mostly left ranching. The few that remain partner with family or other cattle ranchers, working other jobs in addition to growing the herd.
Only a very small percentage of beef grown in the Valley is raised to full size and processed locally. However, the Valley is lucky to have one of the stateās only small USDA-independent beef processors at Westcliffe Meats, south of Westcliffe. Ranchers that specialize in direct beef sales bring their cattle to Westcliffe Meats from across the state.
Much of the size of the local cattle herd will depend on whether the snow and rain return in May, as they have in the past two years. So watch the sky and do those rain dances.
ā Jordan Hedberg
