Where is beef produced in the us

Data prior to have been taken from earlier publications. Total number of cattle and calves in the U. Beef and veal export volume worldwide , by country. This feature is limited to our corporate solutions. Please contact us to get started with full access to dossiers, forecasts, studies and international data. Skip to main content Try our corporate solution for free!

Single Accounts Corporate Solutions Universities. The total beef production in the United States is estimated to reach Over the last two decades, the total U. Beef retail in the United States Beef has the highest retail sales of any fresh meat in the United States , as of In that year, over 19 thousand dollars worth of fresh beef were sold per store per week in the United States.

The retail price for percent ground beef in the United States was 3. Beef brisket , on the other hand, was priced on average around three U.

Consumption of beef amounted to around 58 pounds per capita on an annual basis. This was projected to increase over the next several years before slowly decreasing around the year Other articles in this series: Part 2 - A vernacular lesson Part 3 - A lesson in beef cattle breeds Part 4 - An anatomical context. Did you find this article useful? Please tell us why Submit. Haul manure? Learn More. Why and how to report sightings of brown marmorated stink bugs in your home or business.

Together at the Farm: U. Local Food Conference to be Held. The United States is the world's largest producer of beef, primarily high-quality, grain-fed beef. The U. The focus of the cow-calf operation is to maintain a herd of beef cattle to raise calves.

The cattle feeding sector focuses on preparing cattle for various means of production. Beef cattle are raised in all 50 U. Crop production in this geography is heavily dependent on groundwater from the underlying Ogallala aquifer, which is used extensively for irrigation of corn, wheat, sorghum, and other crops. Energy content of finishing diets, expressed as net energy for gain NE g , typically ranges from 1.

Consequently, diets of feedlot cattle consist primarily of cereal grains and cereal grain byproducts. Corn is by far the predominant cereal grain.

Wheat, which mostly is regarded as a human food crop, frequently is used to displace a portion of corn in feedlot diets. Its use typically is restricted to certain times of the year when wheat prices are low in comparison to corn, such as immediately following wheat harvest. Wheat and barley are, however, the predominant grains used by feedlots in the Pacific Northwest. Sorghum is an important cereal crop produced in the semi-arid states of Kansas and Texas, and to a lesser extent Oklahoma, Colorado, South Dakota, and Nebraska.

Though regarded as being nutritionally inferior to corn, it too is incorporated into feedlot diets when economic conditions favor its use. Feedlots are opportunistic users of a broad range of by product energy feeds.

Cereal grain byproducts have become increasingly important as staples of feedlot cattle diets, particularly in the interior of the continental USA where corn and sorghum production prevail. Growth of the fuel ethanol industry between and represented an unprecedented period of change for the USA beef industry, during which traditional feedstuffs i.

This was cause for major shifts in composition of feedlot diets. Other byproducts are used as well, including cull potatoes or potato processing wastes predominantly in the Pacific Northwest , fruit and vegetable byproducts, byproducts from sugar refining, and co-products derived from milling of wheat and processing of soybeans. Many of these byproduct feeds also contain intermediate to high concentrations of protein, thus making it possible to displace all or a portion of the oilseed meals soybean, cottonseed, sunflower, canola, and others traditionally used to satisfy protein requirements of cattle.

Consequently, dietary protein often is fed in excess, which has potentially important environmental implications. Byproduct feeds typically contain more phosphorus than the cereal grains that they replace, further contributing to environmental challenges associated with confined animal feeding operations. Forages normally constitute a relatively small fraction of feedlot diets, and are used primarily to promote digestive health.

Alfalfa hay and corn silage are the most commonly used roughages. Increased reliance on byproduct feeds in recent years has made it economically feasible to use low protein roughages in feedlot diets, including corn stalks, wheat straw, and other low-value crop residues. The USA system of beef quality grading rewards feedlots for production of highly marbled beef, but also discourages over-fattening of cattle through classification of carcasses into one of five yield grade categories.

Animals that yield carcasses in higher yield grade categories 4 or 5 generally incur heavy market penalties. Most of the beef they process is distributed in boxed form, a significant portion of which is exported to other countries.

Domestic beef production in was The largest volume export markets for USA beef in were Japan Exports were roughly offset by imports 1.

Per capita beef consumption of beef in the USA in was Imported products, particularly from Australia, are important in fulfilling the increasing demand for ground beef products. Domestic demand for beef products is expected to remain stable.

Consequently, export markets are increasingly recognized as being an important target for increasing demand for USA beef products. Though it is projected that most of this demand will be fulfilled by increases in production of poultry products, it is likely that all meat sectors will benefit to some degree.

There is a growing trend within the USA for large purveyors of meat products to exert influence on livestock producers, encouraging them to implement production practices that are perceived as being in line with consumer interests. Among the major players are abattoir companies, wholesalers, grocery chains, the hotel and restaurant industries, and others. This evolution in thinking challenges conventional food animal production systems, and is forcing rapid change in production practices.

As a consequence, the focal points of many research programs across the USA have shifted to encompass these topics. USA beef producers have a long history of adapting quickly to changing market signals in an effort to capture added value.

Branded beef programs, which constitute a form of vertical integration or alignment, are relatively commonplace. Perhaps the best known of these is the Certified Angus Beef program, which since its inception in has arguably transformed the USA beef industry as a result of substantial premiums paid to cattle producers for producing beef that fulfills certain quality standards. Numerous other programs have been spawned in the last 40 years, with the US Department of Agriculture USDA Agricultural Marketing Service now listing 90 different federal certification programs for beef, 80 of which were conceived in the year or later.

Scores of other non-certified branding programs have appeared at the consumer level as well, touting features such as omega-3 enrichment of beef; antibiotic free; hormone-free; organic feeding programs; grass-fed programs, and others that are distinguished by the region of production, specific producers, or other features.

All are aimed at enhancing value by advertising appealing attributes for which consumers are willing to pay price premiums. As branding programs become more prevalent, vertical alignment between various sectors of the beef industry also is increasingly common.

A form of symbiosis can develop in which large production units or consortia of producers align themselves with retail outlets, hotels, or large restaurant companies to ensure ongoing demand or to capture market premiums for their products. In turn, the food companies benefit through supply agreements that guarantee availability or pricing of products that are produced to meet certain standards that can encompass beef quality, meat composition as in the case of omega-3 enrichment , environmental compatibility, sustainability, or production practices that exclude antibiotics and or growth promotants, and numerous other marketable concepts.

Traceability programs have been a topic of much discus sion for the past two decades. This discussion intensified immediately following events in December of surrounding importation of a cull dairy cow from Canada that was discovered to have been infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Several key export markets subsequently were closed to USA beef, which had devastating financial consequences for beef producers and abattoir companies in the USA.

Producer organizations are, for the most part, however, opposed to development of a federally-mandated traceability system, opting instead for a voluntary system of animal identification and traceability that is market-driven. In January of the USA Food and Drug administration fully enacted revised regulations aimed at decreasing use of medically-important antibiotics in food animal production systems [ 6 ]. Central to the new regulations is the necessity for veterinary oversight of antibiotic use.

Since the regulations took effect, pharmaceutical companies that produce affected drug compounds have cited sharp declines in demand for their products, meat purveyors and retailers have publicly announced timelines for procurement of products produced without antibiotics, and major beef producers have announced strategies that will be or have been implemented to decrease antibiotic use.

Much of our own research at Kansas State University is devoted to the task of finding alternative strategies for mitigation of digestive disorders or infectious diseases, but without use of antibiotics. Whether as a result of market pressures or regulatory changes, it seems inevitable that beef production systems of the future are apt to employ production practices that preclude use of antibiotics.

Probiotics are becoming increasingly prevalent in the beef production chain, but especially feedlot systems. Often these consist of Lactobacillus species, fed alone or in combination with Propionibacterium. Normalization of gastrointestinal tract function and competitive inhibition of food-borne pathogens, such as E. More recently, Megasphaera elsdenii , a lactate-utilizing bacteria, has been introduced into the market. Reported benefits include avoidance of ruminal acidosis and the ability to transition more quickly to high-concentrate diets [ 13 ], as well as improved cattle performance and decreased incidence of disease in young cattle after arrival in feedlots [ 14 ].

Anecdotal evidence from commercial abattoirs has suggested it may also decrease fecal shedding of food-borne pathogens, but this effect has yet to be validated in a controlled research experiment. Plants extracts as feed additives constitutes another active area of inquiry, with the notion that these compounds may be useful as substitutes for conventional antimicrobial drugs as a result of their antimicrobial activities.

Several plant extracts have been studied in depth, including beta acids of hops [ 15 ], menthol [ 16 ], eugenol [ 17 ], cinnamaldehyde [ 18 ], limonene [ 19 ], and others, and their impact on gut microflora is in some cases well documented. These compounds often emulate the actions of traditional antibiotic drugs, owing in part to similarities in chemical structure.