Droughts impact the beef industry News

Jaycee Hampton Assistant News and Lifestyle Editor

Ponds are dry, pastures are brown and cattle herds have been liquidated.

A drought is a period of dry conditions in weather that last longer than normal. It can last for days, months and even years, which has immense impacts on ecosystems and agriculture of the affected regions. Local economy is easily harmed throughout these dry-spells, especially in western Oklahoma.

Rain has fallen across much of the state this past month, and weary producers wonder if a long-awaited recovery is near. Difficult decisions will reveal themselves.

Families all across Oklahoma have dedicated generations of hard work to maintain their herds; this remains true for Lindsay Coker and her brother.

“My dad always taught me to not overstock, but that has gotten a little more challenging,” Coker said. “This past winter, we had the leanest pastures we’ve ever started with, and we had to supplement more with forage, cake and protein.”

They decided to leave their careers in Houston to move back home to help their parents farm near Texola, Oklahoma. They grow cotton, wheat and hay while managing an Angus cow-calf operation. Some western Oklahoma producers like Coker live in an area teetering in the extreme to exceptional drought category.

Coker’s operation uses a pasture rotational program to ensure forages recover to maintain cattle grazing and minimize inputs. However, this method is more difficult to follow when grass is stunted or dormant from drought.

As a result, additional hay must be purchased, and the concentrated, processed cake cattle feed made from distillers’ grains, soybean meal, sunflower meal and other crude protein is expensive.

When hay can’t be found and water is limited, older cattle and those not bred are sold to reduce expenses.

Rancher Johnny Owens owns yearlings near Buffalo in northwestern Oklahoma. He has 50% fewer cattle this year and said if his area doesn’t receive additional rain soon, he will be forced to sell his stock.

“Since last August, up until three weeks ago when we got a couple of inches of rain, we’ve had almost no moisture whatsoever,” Owens said. “We have 20% of what our normal grass growth would be this time of year.”

In eastern Oklahoma, green forage covers the landscape which is completely opposite to western Oklahoma’s cracked, bare earth. Cattleman Dax Burchett manages Burchett Cattle Co. in Talala with his father and uncle and has worked as director of sales and operations at Mid America Feeds for 25 years.

“We’re on the edge of stocker country, but we also have a lot of smaller, momand-pop operations that rely on hay when they don’t have a lot of forage,” Burchett said.

Mid America Feeds typically provides feed for about 300,000 head of cattle in Northeast Oklahoma every day, but drought conditions earlier this year forced local producers to cull at least 10% of their herds. The reduction in numbers trickled down to lower feed sales at the mill.

Burchett’s cow-calf and stocker operation was also impacted by the drought with diminished pond water, hay and forage.

“We were watering a large percentage of our animals on city water, which because we live next to a large lake wasn’t an issue, but we would have had to reduce numbers due to water needs,” he said.

But in February, Burchett’s area of northeast Oklahoma received a lifesaving rain that filled some ponds and alleviated the drought’s intensity. Timely showers also fell in March and April, and now Burchett is developing a pasture recovery plan after two years of poor forage yields.

Improving weather conditions are on the rise, but drought recovery takes years, said Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension livestock marketing specialist.

In his latest segment on SUNUP, OSU Agriculture’s weekly production agriculture television show, Peel said 54% of Oklahoma pastures are still in poor condition.

“It’s highly unlikely that we could stop herd liquidation completely,” Peel said. “It’s deceiving. Pastures look green, but producers tell me there’s not a lot of growth. Unless we get a lot of followup moisture within the next couple of months, we’ll still see a somewhat limited forage season.”

During the first half of 2023, cow and heifer slaughter has climbed as producers reduced numbers. During a drought, more female cattle are sent to market, a key indicator of desperate times, Peel said.

“It’s all related to the female side of the industry,” Peel said. “The fastest thing we can do [for recovery] is cut back on cow slaughter. I think it will drop as we go throughout 2023.”

If wet weather continues, pastures and hay fields will produce more forage this summer and producers can work with aged cows and young heifers to rebuild herds. Only then can the Oklahoma beef industry begin to recover.

Currently, Peel said calf market prices are 40% higher than they were in October 2022, and those prices will jump even more when drought conditions subside.

High prices are a good thing in theory, but for those ranchers who had to liquidate and now want to get back in the game, the price to play will be very expensive. “High input costs and drought impacts mean a little bit slower recovery process than the last drought,” Peel said, referring to the drought from 2011 to 2013. “We had two years of high cattle prices in 2014 and 2015, but this time around, we’ll see a relatively elevated cattle price situation for an extended period of time.”

While ranchers watch for rain, beef consumers can expect to feel the effects of a drought-stricken industry. Beef production is expected to be slow. Supplies will tighten, and shoppers will pay higher prices for beef.

“Next year and beyond, we’re going to make a decreasing supply of beef even smaller, because to increase production long term, we will have to save heifers,” Peel said. “You can’t fix things fast. This industry turns slowly.”

Peel said current retail beef prices have been steady for the past 15 to 18 months. As cattle inventory drops to recover from the drought, consumers should expect higher prices at the meat counter.

“We’re setting ourselves up for better conditions in 2024,” Peel said. “That’s the earliest I would expect to see the tightest squeeze on cattle sold at market.”

To learn more about Oklahoma’s drought history and current conditions, visit https://www.drought.gov/states/ oklahoma news.ed@ocolly.com

Continued from 1

Goldman shrugged off criticism by Democrats and others that the session was too focused on red meat issues craved by hard-right Republican activists. “We passed the supermajority of things we came here to pass,” he said.

Democrats are more sullen about the results of the session. Rep. Chris Turner, D-Grand Prairie, said the Legislature missed an opportunity to pass laws that would help all Texans, including teachers. He said the GOP-controlled Legislature spent too much time “attacking LGBTQ Texans and preempting local government’s ability to ensure health and public safety [of Texans].”

“It’s unfortunate and a real loss for Texas,” he said. “The people of Texas want to focus on good public schools, health care and reasonable property tax relief.”

In contrast to Turner, Sen. Bob Hall, R-Edgewood, said culture issues are just as important as nuts-and-bolts proposals. “We’re talking about problems that didn’t even exist when I first came to the legislature that have a significant impact on who we are as a people,” Hall said. “We’re obliged to address the issues of the day.”

Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, defended the work of the House, despite criticism of the ultra-conservative approach.

“In the Texas House, we’ve been focused on the issues that matter most to the people of Texas — property tax relief, education, border security, protecting parents and children,” he said. “I don’t think those are culture issues. Those are issues that the people of Texas by and large care about.”

“We have to address public education and make sure that our schools are adequately funded and our teachers are taken care of,” said Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Farmers Branch.

“That needs to be a top priority, but there’s a lot of discussion over culture war issues that are deeply dividing the state.”

On Monday, as the legislative session was adjourning, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick lamented that more of his priorities did not pass, including allowing the Ten Commandments in Texas classrooms, the banning the teaching of critical race theory in higher education and outlawing countywide polling places. Patrick asked Gov. Greg Abbott to consider these issues and others during a special session.

Texas GOP’s priorities

Last year, delegates at the Texas Republican Party convention approved eight priorities for the 2023 legislative session.

The Legislature addressed most of the priorities, which include what grassroots Republicans framed as “protecting elections, securing the border, banning gender modification of children, stopping the sexualization of Texas kids, banning Democratic Party chairs in the GOP-controlled Legislature, abolishing abortion, defending gun rights and [promoting] parental rights and education freedom.”

Banning Democratic Party chairs in the House is not something that would be made into law. In 2021, the Texas Legislature passed some of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the nation. Hardright Republicans didn’t get all they wanted with border security, including the defeat of a bill that would have enlisted citizens to help with state border operations. The Legislature did allocate $5.4 billion to beef up the state’s presence on the border.

The biggest setback on the list is “education freedom:” Legislation to create a voucher- like program that uses public money to help students pay the cost of private school did not pass the Texas House. It was one of Abbott’s biggest priorities and is expected to be reconsidered during a special legislative session.

While some GOP activists and elected officials lament not getting everything they wanted from the above list, or their own priorities, most of the conservative wish list passed the Legislature.

Patrick touted passing more than culture war legislation, including bills that bolstered the state’s power grid, allocated money to make public school safer and providing mental health funding for rural areas.

‘Social issues have great political power’

“Culture war” is a term used to describe the political struggle between conservatives and progressives on a number of issues, including gun rights, LGBTQ rights, education reform, censorship, immigration, abortion and much more.

Texas is not unlike other conservative states that have had a renewed focus on culture wars. Such laws are being passed all over the country, including Florida, where Abbott has a friendly rivalry with Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is running for president on his strength as a culture warrior.

“Social issues have great political power,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “These are winning issues for them [Republicans], because there are voters out there who they resonate with. If there were no voters, they wouldn’t be winning issues.”

Sabato said the GOP’s focus on transgender Americans is dangerous. “They’re really being pushed up against the wall,” Sabato said of transgender Americans who make up 1% of the population.

“It’s being made worse for them with these laws, but they [lawmakers] don’t care about that.” Jonathan Gooch, a spokesperson for the LGTBQ advocacy group Equality Texas, said the bills passed by the Legislature would deprive transgender residents of necessary health care.

“When lawmakers are deciding who has the right to access life-saving care, what they’re really deciding is who gets to live and who dies,” he said. “That’s where I see the biggest harm out of this session, banning health care, which I think sets a dangerous precedent for all Texans.”

But Dave Carney, Abbott’s chief political strategist, said Republican lawmakers were right to focus on issues important to conservative Texans.

”Eighty-percent of Texans support protection of minors from gender modification, so it’s really not culture wars,” he said weeks before the session ended. “It’s not like some fringe argument, like the other side that’s actually arguing for the fringe.”

Some Democrats broke with others in their party to back various bills aimed at transgender Texans. Four House Democrats voted with Republicans to ban hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender Texans under the age of 18.

Ten House Democrats voted with Republicans to pass Senate Bill 15, which would require college athletes to compete on sports teams that align with their gender assigned at birth.

Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, voted for a bill regulating drag shows. And more than a dozen Democrats supported a bill that would ban books deemed too sexually explicit.

“It remains my legislative duty and moral obligation to vote the conscience and core values of my constituency,” said Rep. Shawn Thierry, D-Houston, during her floor speech in support of the bill banning hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender youth.

Carney also defended anti-DEI legislation and the need to rein in local prosecutors who are not committed to prosecuting crimes. “There’s a lot of name calling, but there’s not a lot of facts,” he said. “It’s just common sense.”

Still, critics say the Legislature should have used the state’s abundant resources to tackle more meaningful problems, like improving access to health care, pouring more money into public education and bolstering the state’s infrastructure.

“At the beginning of the session, when I saw we had a $33 billion surplus, I was really hopeful that we could make investments that would set the state up for economic dominance for decades to come,” said Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas. “Unfortunately, we missed our moment to rise to the occasion.”

Abbott’s priority list

Whether it’s hot-button issues or bread-and-butter bills, Texas lawmakers are expected to finish their work in a special session.

Abbott didn’t get the Legislature to approve a voucher-like plan that gives public money for students to attend private schools. It was blocked by a coalition of urban and rural lawmakers who fear the impact of such a plan on public schools.

While Abbott didn’t get many items on his priority list, the most glaring omission of the session is the lack of the promised and much ballyhooed property tax cut. House and Senate leaders couldn’t compromise on a deal before the regular session adjourned.

“Texans expect and deserve and demand real property tax relief,” said Leach, the Plano lawmaker. “Anything less than us delivering the largest property tax relief in the history of the state of Texas is not acceptable.”