Recent Droughts Hit the Top Cattle Counties Hardest

By Juan Vassallo

The nation’s cattle inventory is at its lowest level in decades, the result of a long-term decline that has been pushed even lower in recent years by drought.

Much of the country endured severe dry spells in recent years, most notably in 2022. But the impact has been especially felt in the regions where America’s beef industry is most concentrated. 

In November 2022, the U.S reached a drought index of 202 on the Drought Severity and Coverage Index (DSCI), where values range from 0, meaning no dryness, to 500, indicating exceptional drought across an entire area. That month marked the nation’s second-highest drought reading of the century, surpassed only by the 2012-2013 North American drought. 

But for the top 200 cattle-producing counties — together representing roughly a quarter of the national herd — the drought index peaked at 267.5 in the same period, far higher than the national average.

A similar pattern happened in 2024, when national drought conditions intensified in October and November, and again were more severe across the top beef-producing counties. These counties span 21 states. While they are largely clustered across the central U.S. particularly in the top five beef-producing states of Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska and South Dakota several are outside that core region as well, including in states like Oregon and Florida.

Ranchers in those regions have faced shrinking pastures, dwindling water supplies and the rising cost of feed, conditions that have forced many to thin their herds. And because rebuilding cattle numbers is a slow biological process, there is no quick path to replenishing the nation’s supply.