Plagued by drought and high feed costs, Nevada’s beef cattle industry is struggling.

Cash receipts from the industry — historically the state’s largest agricultural commodity — are up. But the overall number of beef cattle in Nevada has steadily crept downward since 1974, with that decline accelerating between 2017 and 2022 when the industry saw a 6 percent drop in production, according to a new report by the Nevada Department of Agriculture.

Beef cattle in production dropped from more than 248,000 in 2017 to just under 233,000 in 2022, while the number of producers decreased roughly 16 percent to just 1,130 operations.

The causes of the decline are many, according to state officials and experts in the industry, but the list is topped by drought conditions, high supplemental feed costs and rising interest rates. Nevada’s numbers echo a national trend — although the United States is the leading producer of beef worldwide (producing 20 percent of all beef) national production is also down.

Because cattle are housed outdoors, they feel the effects of harsh climatic conditions  more acutely than livestock that is raised indoors, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). And the past several years have been rough.

“To find the right cattle that fit everything we need them to do — which first of all, is to thrive and survive in Nevada, which is really tough to do — to have that and have them perform well in other segments of the industry … that’s asking a lot,” said Jon Griggs, manager of Maggie Creek Ranch in Elko.

An early-decade drought decimated Nevada’s crops and forage, forcing ranchers to purchase expensive feed. Those lean years were followed by a historic winter that saw rangeland buried under feet of snow, forcing ranchers to continue to rely on suddenly expensive hay and alfalfa.

Now, with drought conditions slightly mitigated and hay prices declining, agricultural loans that historically helped many ranchers get through the year are seeing higher rates. 

“I’m concerned. It is our largest cash crop in Nevada,” Nevada Department of Agriculture (NDA) Director J.J. Goicoechea said in an interview. He said the best case scenario for the state is an increase in beef cattle numbers that then plateaus, as the roller coaster ups and downs are “not good for the economy and it’s not good for the longevity of our producers.” 

NDA issues annual reports outlining the state’s trends — when the NDA issues its next one, Goicoechea predicts the sharp decline will “flatten out.” 

“We didn’t have much further to go,” he said, guessing the state saw among its lowest beef cattle populations ever between 2017 and 2022. “We were already pretty much in the basement.” 

Not enough rain …

Nevada is known for being the nation’s driest state, but the start of the decade was particularly rough.

In 2020, 100 percent of the state was in at least a moderate state of drought, with a quarter of the state battling “exceptional” drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. Exceptional drought is the most severe category, with widespread vegetation losses and extreme wildfire risk.

That year, the USDA declared six Nevada counties (Churchill, Humboldt, Lincoln, Lyon, Pershing and Washoe) as natural disaster areas due to the extreme conditions. The declaration allowed agricultural producers in those counties to apply for emergency loans to address loss of livestock or to refinance debts.

Griggs remembers the start of the decade being particularly awful. Usually, the ranch produces between 2,900 and 3,000 tons of hay, but in one drought year, the ranch produced only about 15 tons of hay, he said. There was no water for irrigation, the crops were stressed, then grasshoppers and crickets destroyed the remaining crops and a wind event caused even further damage.

“It was really horrific,” he said. “I think a lot of people depopulated cows that winter. They didn’t have the hay to feed them, and hay was astronomical in price.”

Ranchers in 16 Western states pay nominal annual fees to graze on public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and U.S. Forest Service. This year, ranchers will pay $1.35 for one cow and her calf, a rate that has been in place for six years and dates back decades. 

The formula for calculating federal grazing fees was established by Congress in the 1978 Public Rangelands Improvement Act. A 1986 federal executive order mandated that rates could not fall below $1.35 and set a cap on how much the rate can increase. Since 1981, the fee has ranged from $1.35 to $2.31.

When rangeland vegetation is sparse, ranchers are forced to purchase feed.

“The feed just wasn’t there to be able to feed them, and they couldn’t afford hay to feed them — hay prices were skyrocketing,” said Doug Busselman, executive vice president of the Nevada Farm Bureau.

Between 2017 and 2021, cattle producers in the Basin Range saw a 9 percent increase in feed-related operating costs over the previous five-year period, dedicating roughly 76 percent of all costs to feed. National counterparts between 2017 and 2021 dedicated about 72 percent of all costs to feed and only saw a 4 percent increase.

Then, in 2022, the cost of hay and alfalfa broke historic records multiple times. The cost of 1 ton of dry alfalfa in December 2022 was $310 in Nevada, 15 percent higher than the national price of $269 per ton.

Goicoechea recalls purchasing hay for his family’s beef cattle for as much as $350 per ton. 

Eventually, the price of hay declined — this year, hay is selling for $80-$90 a ton. But because of the declining cattle numbers, cattle increased in value, and many ranchers responded by selling and thus shrinking herd sizes even more. 

… and too much snow

In 2023, ranchers faced the opposite problem — too much precipitation. 

Winter started early, and ranchers were forced to purchase supplemental feed earlier than usual. Rangeland across Northern Nevada, where most of the state’s larger cattle ranches operate, was buried under feet of snow, and with high winds and extremely cold temperatures with no snow melt between storms, forage remained buried.  

Many herds were trucked out of traditional winter grazing areas — other ranchers were unable to access their herds due to drifting snow, and many cattle died from the conditions. 

Then, an atmospheric river came through, causing severe flooding. Many heifers (a female who has not yet given birth) were giving birth in several inches of standing water, Goicoechea recalled. Somewhere between 40 percent to 50 percent of all heifers giving birth for the first time that year lost their calves. 

“Emotionally, that hurt a lot of ranchers,” he said. “They just had a hollow look in their eye.

“We were worried about a lot of our producers. They probably care more for their animals than they do for themselves. I think that’s why some got out of the business.” 

Directors of multiple Western state agriculture departments, including Nevada, again asked the USDA for assistance (that it received), this time with supplemental feed, snow removal and transportation expenses.

And now, interest rates are up. 

Many ranchers rely on operating loans from agricultural lending institutions — loans fund operations through the year, then ranchers pay off the loans when they sell in the fall. Interest rates that hovered around 2 percent earlier in the decade have skyrocketed to 8 percent, Goicoechea said. 

With all of those challenges, Nevada’s cattle numbers haven’t bounced back, Busselman said, primarily due to the cost of bringing new cows into production. It generally takes two years before a heifer generates revenue — cows are generally bred when they are 1 year old and give birth to their first calves when they are 2. 

“The prices are such that it’s much more favorable to send them to market than put them in the herd,” Busselman said.

This year, the mild winter — not too cold, windy or snowy and with close-to-average precipitation across the northern part of the state — has been a welcome relief, Griggs said. 

“This year, to me, has been a winter made to order. We had pretty good moisture early,” he said. “Soil moisture isn’t horrible, snowpack is average. I think we’re in OK shape.

“People are sort of panicked that we’ve been having 40- to 50-degree days in January, but I’ll take it all day long.”

Beef by the numbers

Nevada’s decline in beef cattle (as well as domestic sheep) can be traced, in part, to the passage of federal regulations such as the Bureau of Land Management’s 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act and 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act (the bureau’s legislative charter that requires public land be managed for multiple uses), Goicoechea said. 

But a decline in grazing could have some benefits for Nevada’s landscape. 

According to a 2021 analysis from the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, nearly two-thirds of assessed BLM grazing allotments failed the agency’s own standards for water quality, vegetation, soil and wildlife habitat due to overgrazing, with more than one-third of those failures attributed to livestock grazing. Nevada had the highest failure rate (64 percent), although less than half of the state’s allotments were assessed.

“By any measure, federal rangeland in Nevada reflects some of the worst ecological conditions in the West,” according to the analysis.

But agriculture in the state remains strong. The industry contributed $6.5 billion in economic output to the state in 2022, with $1.2 billion coming from farming and ranching. Beef cattle sales accounted for $382 million of that revenue — a significant increase over the $308 million generated in 2017.

Nevada’s numbers are reflective of a larger, nationwide trend, where profits are up but production is down. 

While U.S. demand for beef products has declined over the past several years, exports have increased, reaching 3.5 billion pounds in 2022. That year, nationwide cattle and calf sales accounted for nearly 17 percent of all agricultural sales, totaling $89.4 billion, a 16 percent increase since 2017, according to the USDA. 

But the number of cattle and beef cattle ranches continued to slowly decline and, in 2024, the nation reported its smallest beef herd since 1951. 

Nationally, numbers are expected to contract for another year or so, Goicoechea said. 

Cattle cycles average between eight and 12 years, according to the USDA. When cattle prices and revenues are expected to rise, producers may expand their herds; if prices are expected to decline, ranchers reduce their herds, keeping fewer heifers. 

Nationally, in 2004, there were 94.4 million beef and dairy cattle, including calves. By 2007, there were 96.6 million. But, as feed prices rose and drought conditions increased, ranchers reduced their herds, and populations declined through 2014, when the population reached just 88.2 million head, the smallest herd size in more than 60 years. 

By 2019, there were 94.8 million; by 2023, that had declined to 89.3 million. 

In Nevada, Goicoechea estimates beef cattle numbers will continue contracting through at least spring of 2026. 

Goicoechea remains concerned but confident in the state’s producers. 

“There’s always headwinds,” he said. “Those that stay in this beef cattle lifestyle, they’re tough.”