Wyoming
‘Megadrought,’ Big Meat Packers Drive Prices Up For Wyoming Beef
Anyone who loves to throw a good burger or steak on the grill won’t be surprised ranchers are realizing record profits and consumers are paying premium prices at grocery stores.
The contrast between these trends stems is the first lesson taught at business schools everywhere: supply and demand, or vice versa. For the beef industry, including Wyoming ranchers, high demand and limited cattle supply allows them to get top dollar for their livestock, maximizing profits in the current market.
“It’s a supply and demand issue,” said state Rep. Bob Davis, R-Rock Springs, who is also a rancher by trade. “Beef is in high demand, but ranchers don’t have the inventory to fill that demand. That’s bringing prices up and determining the price that the processors are willing to pay the ranchers for the beef.”
At a recent National Cattle Convention held in Florida earlier this month, industry experts from CattleFax presented an optimistic outlook, projecting record prices across all classes of cattle for the year ahead.
Drought Discourages Breeding
Several factors propel the bullish forecast, with a yearslong drought being the most significant. These dry spells in the Western and Midwestern regions of the U.S. have hindered efforts to expand herds and contributed to their continued decline, Davis said.
“We’ve been in a drought for at least four years,” he said. “And ranchers have had to sell down their inventory because of a lack of feed, lack of pasture, lack of water. We just can’t compete with mother nature.”
Severe drought causes cattle to stop breeding, resulting in a scarcity of calves for sale, which causes ranchers to miss out on crucial income.
“We had to sell half our herd over those four years. We started with 300, but when there’s a drought they don’t breed, so they’re dead weight and we don’t make money if they aren’t breeding cattle we can spell,” said Marilyn Wood, a southern Utah rancher.
To replenish the depleted inventory, the Wood family would need to spend about $1,500 per head at current prices, amounting to a significant $225,000, she added.
However, realizing a return on that investment would require a two-year process. After acquiring the calves, a year is needed for it to mature and become eligible for breeding. Then it’s an additional year before the bred calves can be sold.
Rebuilding
Furthermore, achieving a full return on that investment depends on several factors, including the selling price of the beef compared to the initial purchase price. There is also uncertainty about whether all calves will successfully breed.
“Most ranchers don’t have $225,000 to go out and replace 150 head of cattle,” Wood said. “It takes a lot of years to rebuild that inventory.”
The most recent USDA inventory report reveals a historic low in cattle numbers, with a 2% decrease to 28 million head. This marks the lowest inventory level in 50 years, a trend expected to continue for three more years.
The low inventory also creates problems for ranchers needing to buy cattle to replenish their herds.
“There isn’t enough cattle on the market for ranchers to just go out and buy more,” Wood said. “We have to build our inventory with the herds we already have, and that takes years.”
While 2023 brought favorable weather conditions overall for cattle ranchers, it wasn’t enough to declare an end to the drought, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s 2023 drought report.
The Great Plains region, spanning from Montana and North Dakota to Texas, endured three years of unusually dry conditions. Above-average precipitation in 2023 brought some relief, especially in the Western areas. But the area still didn’t fully bounce back from the deficits of the previous three years.
Scientists have dubbed the drought ongoing in the Western region for more than two decades a “megadrought.”
The Southwest region also has experienced several years of drought, with 2023 providing some relief, but not sufficient to fully alleviate the area from drought conditions.
Even if the drought lifts and ranchers can replenish their inventory, shoppers aren’t likely to find much relief at the grocery store in the near future.
Big Beef Business
Many ranchers say this is largely because of the influence of major packing conglomerates on the meat processing industry.
“These corporations are the biggest reason why we are seeing the prices we are seeing,” said Tyler Lindholm, fifth-generation rancher and state director for the free-market advocacy group Americans for Prosperity.
Referred to as the “big four,” these companies wield control over the market, dictating the price at which beef is sold, Lindholm said. Critics argue this dominance amplifies market instability and undermines the interests of consumers and ranchers.
“These four major packing corporations are the problem,” Lindholm said. “Yes, right now ranchers are making a profit. But it’s just a bubble and like bubbles, they pop. And I don’t expect these processing companies, who really are responsible for setting the price you pay at the store, to bring the price back down.”
Lindholm also stressed the importance of legislative measures to address the overwhelming control exerted by these corporations to ensure fairness and stability in the market.
As part of this, Lindholm advocates for state laws that enable people to buy beef directly from local ranchers, bypassing the big companies. He said direct-market friendly laws pair consumers with fresher and potentially higher quality products, but also enable them to support local businesses and farmers.
Additionally, he would like to see more state-inspected packaging facilities. This way, ranchers wouldn’t have to rely on big corporations to process and package their beef, giving them more control over their products and ensuring a fairer marketplace.
If the Wyoming House and Senate approve its budget changes, then the chambers’ Joint Conference Committee will have helped the University of Wyoming dodge a $40 million cut, while also limiting the Wyoming Business Council to one year’s funding instead of the standard two.
The Joint Conference Committee adopted numerous changes to the state’s two-year budget draft, but didn’t formally advance the document to the House and Senate chambers. The committee meets again Monday and may do so at that time.
Then, the House and Senate can vote on whether to adopt that draft by a simple majority.
First, UW
Starting in January, the Joint Appropriations Committee majority had sought to deny around $20 million in exception requests the University of Wyoming made, while imposing a $40 million cut to the university’s block grant.
That’s about 10% of the state’s grant to UW but a lesser proportion of the school’s overall operating budget.
The Senate sought to restore the $60 million.
The House sought to keep the denials and cuts, ultimately settling on a bargain to cut $20 million, and hinge UW’s retention of the remaining $20 million on its finding and reporting $5 million in savings.
The Joint Conference Committee the House and Senate sent into a Friday meeting to negotiate those two stances chose to fund UW “fully,” Senate Majority Floor Leader Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, told Cowboy State Daily in the state Capitol after the meeting.
But, $10 million of UW’s $40 million block grant won’t reach it until the school charts a “road map” of how it could save $5 million, and reports that to the Joint Appropriations Committee, she added.
“A healthy exercise, I think, for them to participate in, while the Legislature still allows them to receive full grant funding,” Nethercott said.
“I’m hopeful people feel confident the University is fully funded,” she continued, as it’s “on the brink of receiving a new president, having the resources he or she may need to continue to steer the leadership of the University, our state’s flagship school into the future.”
Hours earlier in a press conference, House Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, said the Legislature has been clear that UW should avoid “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or DEI programming, and that it’s the position of the House majority that the school should tailor its programming to Wyoming’s true business needs – so UW graduates will stay in the state.
Within an earlier draft of the budget sat a footnote blocking money for Wyoming Public Media — a publicly funded media and radio entity funded through UW’s budget.
That footnote is gone from the JCC’s draft, said Nethercott.
Wyoming Business Council
The Wyoming Business Council is set to receive roughly $14 million, confined to one year, for its internal operations, said Nethercott.
“Both chambers have decided to only fund the operations,” Nethercott said, “not all the grant programs.”
She said that’s to compel the Legislature to revisit the concerns it has with the agency, then return in the 2027 legislative session with a vision for its future.
The Business Ready Communities program is “eliminated,” she said.
JCC member Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan, elaborated further.
Of the appropriation, $12 million is from the state’s checking account, plus the state is authorizing WBC to use $157,787 in federal funds and nearly $1 million from other sources.
“We’re going to take it up as an interim topic in appropriations (committee) and how to rebuild it and make it work the way we think it should work,” said Pendergraft. But the JCC opted to fund the Small Business Development Center for two years, along with Economic Diversification Division for Manufacturing Works, and the Wyoming Women’s Business Center, Pendergraft noted, pointing to that language on his draft budget sheet.
Pendergraft made headlines last year by saying he wanted to eliminate the Wyoming Business Council altogether.
But Nethercott told the Senate earlier this month, legislators have complained of that agency her entire nine-year tenure.
She attributed this to what she called communications shortfalls that may not be intentional. She cosponsored a now-stalled bill this year that had sought to adopt a task force to evaluate WBC.
The Wyoming Business Council’s functions range from less controversial, like helping communities build infrastructure, to more controversial, like awarding tax-funded grants to certain businesses on a competitive application process.
Wyoming Public Television
Wyoming Public Television, which is not the same as Wyoming Public Media, is slated to receive the $3 million it lost when Congress defunded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Nethercott said.
It will also receive its usual $3 million from Wyoming.
The entity will not receive another $3 million it had sought to upgrade its emergency-alert towers, said Nethercott, “because we received information from them… they have another source to pay for the replacement and maintenance of the towers.”
Like the Wyoming Business Council, the Wyoming Public TV’s functions range from less controversial to more controversial.
The entity operates, maintains and staffs emergency alert towers throughout Wyoming.
Wyoming Public TV also produces entertainment and informational movies. Its state grants run through the community colleges’ budget.
State Employees
Nethercott noted that the JCC advanced to both chambers an agreement to pay $111 million from the state’s checking account to give state employees raises.
Those raises would bring them to 2024 market values for their work, she noted.
Because that money is coming from the state’s checking account, or “general fund,” and not its severance tax pool as the House had envisioned, then $111 million won’t impact the $105 million investment another still-viable bill seeking to build an “energy dominance fund” envisions.
That bill, sponsored by Senate President Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, seeks to lend to large energy-sector projects.
Biteman told Cowboy State Daily in an interview days before the session convened that its purpose is to counteract “green” compacts investors have adopted, and which have bottlenecked energy projects.
Wyoming’s executive branch is currently suing BlackRock and other investors on that same assertion.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.
WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026
Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)
Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic
Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.
Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)
Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)
Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)
Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)
Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)
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WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 2-18-26
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 9 Scores 2026
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WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 8 Scores 2026
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WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Polls 1-21-26
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WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 1-7-26
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 3 Scores 2025-26
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 12-24-25
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 2 Scores 2025-26
WyoPreps Coaches and Media Basketball Rankings 12-17-25
WyoPreps Girls Basketball Week 1 Scores 2025-26
CLASS 4A
Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)
Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)
Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)
Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Wyoming Boys 4A Swimming & Diving State Championships 2026
4A Boys State Swim Meet for 2026 in Cheyenne
Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com
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