{"id":437249,"date":"2026-09-16T02:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T02:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/437249\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T02:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T02:12:12","slug":"cattle-industry-hit-by-drought-high-production-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/437249\/","title":{"rendered":"Cattle industry hit by drought, high production costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TEXAS \u2014 It\u2019s been a challenging year for the cattle industry both across the country and in the Lone Star State, with producers facing tightened supplies after drought, increased production costs and New World screwworm. Now, as efforts to lower beef prices continue, ranchers are raising concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Managing hundreds of animals is never an easy feat.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rangercattle.com\/home\" title=\"https:\/\/www.rangercattle.com\/home\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ranger Cattle<\/a> owner, Joshua Eilers, says this year has been one of the most difficult.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe challenges just keep piling up,\u201d Eilers said. \u201cThe industry just seems to get harder and harder.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Trump administration\u2019s latest effort to boost the meat industry is an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2026\/09\/promoting-fair-competition-in-livestock-markets-and-expanding-market-access-for-american-meat-producers\/\" title=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2026\/09\/promoting-fair-competition-in-livestock-markets-and-expanding-market-access-for-american-meat-producers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">executive order<\/a> that supports small and medium meatpackers to improve market competition and give producers more choices.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The push to expand beef processing comes after the administration also announced a temporary pause on beef import tariffs.<\/p>\n<p>Agricultural economic experts say the pause doesn\u2019t address two of the industry\u2019s biggest problems: record low cattle herds and record high production costs.<\/p>\n<p>Professor and director of the Center for North American Studies at Texas A&amp;M University, Luis Ribera explained, \u201cinput costs are higher.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust bringing the imported beef, it basically reduced the price that they could get, but their cost is still the same,\u201d said Ribera.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As a rancher and beef producer, Eilers says it\u2019s already costing his operation about $50,000 a month. He says the announcement has sent the cattle futures market declining.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s serious numbers,\u201d said Eilers.<\/p>\n<p>For now, Eilers plans on doing the best he can for as long as he can.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not long-term sustainable,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to see relief somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Producers anticipate the uncertainty will continue even after the pause on beef import tariffs ends on Nov. 30.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 It\u2019s been a challenging year for the cattle industry both across the country and in the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[5175,2389,30721,2160,132,134,133,1570,102,56,82,27,1569,2053,835],"class_list":["post-437249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-abigail-vaerewyck","tag-agriculture","tag-app-agriculture","tag-app-top-stories","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-houston","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}