Due To Extreme Drought, The Number Of Cattle In The U.S. Is The Smallest It Has Been Since 1951

Michael Snyder
American Dream
February 4, 2014

Image: Cattle (Wikimedia Commons).

The last time the number of cattle in the United States was this low was 63 years ago.  But back in 1951, there were only about 154 million people living in the United States.  Now, there are more than 313 million people living in this nation. 

The size of the U.S. cattle herd has been shrinking for seven years in a row, and we are rapidly heading toward a beef shortage unlike anything that this country has ever experienced before.  Of course the primary reason for this is the extreme drought which has been plaguing the western half of the country.  As I noted recently, 2013 was the driest year that the state of California has ever experienced, and due to the lack of water ranchers across the western half of the nation have been selling off their cattle to be slaughtered.  If you check out the U.S. Drought Monitor, you can see that almost the entire state of California is officially experiencing “D3 Extreme Drought” right now.  If this drought does not end, we will eventually be facing a food crisis in the United States that is greater than any of us have ever seen in our entire lifetimes.

According to ABC News, the size of the U.S. cattle herd is already down to less than 88 million animals…

The National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that the U.S. inventory of cattle and calves totaled 87.7 million animals as of Jan. 1. That was down by about 1.6 million cattle, or 2 percent, compared with this time last year.

The agency says this is the lowest January inventory since 1951.

Read More