If you’ve suffered sticker shock buying hamburger or steak lately, you’re not imagining it. Beef prices have been climbing for several years, but the increases have accelerated as the nation’s cattle supply has tightened. In June, beef and veal prices were 11.8% higher than a year earlier, and USDA expects beef prices to rise about 10.7% during 2026.
The simplest explanation is supply and demand: Americans still want beef, but there aren’t enough cattle.
The United States had 86.2 million cattle and calves at the beginning of 2026, the smallest herd in roughly 75 years. That’s down from about 94.7 million in 2019. Go back further and the contrast is startling: the U.S. cattle herd peaked at about 132 million in 1975.
Yet farmers have become remarkably efficient. Better genetics, nutrition and management allow today’s cattle to produce considerably more beef per animal. That’s why the country can produce nearly as much beef with millions fewer cattle than decades ago. But that efficiency is now being tested as the herd continues shrinking.
You Can’t Produce a Cow Overnight
Here’s what makes fixing a beef shortage difficult: a cow generally produces only one calf a year.
Like humans, cattle have a pregnancy lasting about nine months. After birth, that calf still needs roughly another 15 to 24 months to reach slaughter. So from breeding a cow to having her calf become beef can easily take two years or more.
To expand the herd, ranchers also have to keep young females — heifers — rather than sell them. That means giving up today’s high cattle price in hopes that the animal will produce profitable calves later.
USDA counted only 27.6 million beef cows at the beginning of 2026, down another 1%, while the calf crop fell 2%.
Then There’s Drought
In addition to fewer cattle, the cost of getting cattle to market has increased, starting with the cost of feeding them.
Cattle spend much of their lives eating grass. When grass isn’t available, ranchers supplement with hay. Later, cattle sent to feedlots are generally finished on energy-rich rations containing corn and other feeds.
Grass is relatively inexpensive when nature provides it. Hay isn’t.
Years of drought across cattle country have reduced pasture and forced ranchers to choose between buying more feed or reducing the size of their herds. In many cases, ranchers chose to reduce their herds so the available grass would stretch farther. Those decisions are part of the reason the nation’s cattle count is so low today.
Drought creates another problem: it can reduce the amount of hay produced nearby. When local hay is scarce, ranchers may have to buy it from farther away, paying not only higher hay prices but also the cost of hauling those heavy bales long distances.
Climate change adds to the long-term concern. Hotter conditions increase evaporation and water stress in areas already prone to drought.
Then There’s Groundwater.
Western Kansas’ enormous cattle, feedlot and meatpacking industry developed partly around the High Plains/Ogallala Aquifer, which made large-scale irrigation of corn and other feed crops possible. But in many areas, groundwater is being pumped much faster than nature replaces it.
Kansas State University researchers have found an uncomfortable tradeoff: reducing groundwater pumping by 20% would mean sacrificing some agricultural production initially, but conserving that water could allow the region to produce more corn and cattle over the long term than if farmers continue pumping at current rates until wells become uneconomical.
In other words, Kansas faces a difficult choice: maximize production today or conserve enough water to help sustain agricultural production for future generations.
Can Imports Help?
Somewhat, but they aren’t a quick fix.
Imports of live Mexican cattle have been restricted because of the New World screwworm, a dangerous livestock parasite. USDA plans to begin a phased reopening of the border at Douglas, Arizona, on Aug. 24, followed potentially by additional ports if disease controls prove successful.
Those Mexican cattle won’t immediately become hamburger at the grocery store. Many enter the United States as feeder cattle and still must be raised and finished before slaughter.
The Trump administration has also expanded imports of lean beef from Argentina, allowing an additional 80,000 metric tons during 2026 tariff-free. That’s intended primarily to increase supplies used for ground beef, but it’s small compared with America’s enormous beef market.
The United States also exports beef, which reduces the amount available to American consumers. However, exports are actually expected to decline substantially in 2026.
One reason is China, which had become a major market for U.S. beef. China requires foreign meat-processing plants to be registered before their products can be sold there. Registrations for hundreds of U.S. beef plants expired in 2025, and China has not renewed most of them, sharply reducing U.S. beef shipments there.
That means more U.S. beef is staying home, but even that hasn’t been enough to overcome the tight cattle supply. USDA expects the United States to import far more beef than it exports in 2026 — about 6.1 billion pounds imported compared with about 2.3 billion pounds exported.
Why Aren’t Other Meat Prices Rising as Fast?
If drought and higher feed costs are affecting agriculture generally, why aren’t chicken and pork prices rising as quickly as beef?
The answer largely comes down to biology and how the animals are raised.
A cow typically produces just one calf a year, and it can take two years or more from breeding the cow until that calf is ready for slaughter.
A sow, by comparison, can produce two litters and roughly 20 or more pigs a year, with hogs reaching market weight in about six months. Chickens reproduce even faster, and broiler chickens can reach market size in just six to eight weeks.
Hogs and chickens also don’t depend on pasture. They’re primarily raised indoors and fed corn, soybeans and other purchased feed. Drought can make that feed more expensive, but a lack of rain doesn’t leave producers without enough grass to support their animals.
Sheep are closer to cattle because they graze and drought can affect their food supply. But ewes commonly produce more than one lamb, lambs mature faster than cattle, and Americans eat relatively little lamb. Imports also supply a significant portion of U.S. lamb consumption.
The difference shows up at the grocery store. In June, beef prices were 11.8% higher than a year earlier, compared with 2.4% for pork, while poultry prices were essentially unchanged.
So What’s the Solution?
There isn’t one solution — and there certainly isn’t a quick one.
Ranchers need to retain more young females for breeding rather than sending them to market, gradually rebuilding the herd. Better rainfall would restore pastures and reduce dependence on expensive hay. Water conservation and more efficient irrigation could help preserve the Great Plains’ ability to grow feed crops over the long term.
Continued improvements in cattle genetics, nutrition and feed efficiency can also help farmers produce more beef from each animal. And carefully managed imports of cattle and beef can supplement domestic production.
But none of those solutions can instantly produce millions of additional cattle.
In fact, rebuilding the herd can temporarily make the beef shortage worse: every heifer a rancher keeps for breeding is one less animal headed toward the beef supply today.
That’s why economists warn that beef production could remain tight through 2027 and possibly into 2028.
The beef shortage took years to develop. Between the biology of cattle, the economics of ranching and growing pressure on the land and water needed to raise them, it will take years to fix.
