Strong beef demand will likely continue in 2025, helped along by potentially tighter supplies as beef producers rebuild their herds and increased engagement in the cattle markets.

The CattleFax Symposium at NCBA’s 2025 CattleCon revealed a fairly healthy supply of feed and grain in the early winter, all thanks to a record-high yield in 2024.

At no time in the history of livestock agriculture have producers been more efficient at producing beef than they are now. Just in the last half-century, global beef production has nearly doubled, despite a historically small herd size.

Through the first half of 2024, it looked like the U.S. might be climbing out of the drought that has plagued big chunks of the country for the last half-decade. The El Nino the ag world had been waiting for was finally here. And then, it wasn’t.

As we prepare to build back the U.S. beef herd and reduce the diseases threatening U.S. beef production, farmers and ranchers should consider how to protect their animals and operations before it is too late.

With the cattle herd is at an all-time low, we are all wondering when herd rebuilding will begin and how long this cattle cycle will last. In the past six years, 8 million head of cattle have left the herd. Even with mass liquidation, beef production continues to grow, said Kevin Good, CattleFax analyst, at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) CattleCon 2025 in San Antonio, Texas.

The NCBA lobbying team told those in attendance at NCBA’s CattleCon that better days lie ahead for beef producers with President Donald Trump.

JB Ranch in Immokalee, Florida, comprises roughly 10,000 acres in south Florida’s humid, subtropical climate. Russell and Liesa Priddy manage roughly 600 Brangus and Beefmaster cattle on the ranch, with calves being sold to operations in the Western part of the U.S. once a year.

In this Progressive Cattle Podcast episode, David visits with Kent Bacus, vice president of governmental affairs for the National Beef Cattle Association, at the Canadian Beef Industry Conference about trade negotiations with Canada, and Tyrell visits with Charley Martinez with the University of Tennessee about a study using artificial intelligence (AI) and tracking eye movement to gauge interest in what genetic information producers are looking at in bull sale catalogs.