Record-high beef prices prove a challenge for Texas ranchers

Explaining high beef prices

Beef prices are the highest they've been since the government started tracking those numbers in the 1980s. You've likely noticed it in the grocery store.

EL CAMPO, Texas - At the El Campo Livestock Exchange, Gulf Coast cattle ranchers gather for a weekly auction for young cattle that could fetch up to $8 a pound. As the auction proceeds, some of the animals are sold for thousands of dollars.

Ranchers are getting top-prices for the animals, but there are fewer that can be brought to market. About a third of the state's 12 million head of cattle are designated for beef production. It's the largest cattle population in the country, but still smaller in recent years after droughts thinned the herd. 

With high production costs added, high prices are inevitable.

Typically, beef cattle can take up to two years to reach market weight, meaning lower prices for consumers are still, likely, a couple years away.

What they're saying:

"The prices are an all-time high because the cattle numbers are so low, right now. They're the lowest we've had in years," says Colt Adams, who co-owns the El Campo Livestock Exchange. "We've got to have more numbers. When more numbers come and people raise more heifers and keep their heifers and bring more cattle onto the countryside, then the beef may just go down a little bit."