Beef Industry Works On Clearing The Backlog

Jul 02, 2020

The President of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association says cattle are moving to slaughter, but it will take months for the industry to work its way through the current backlog.

Bob Lowe says numbers are going down but it takes time considering the volume of animals, 130 thousand that were caught in the system when COVID-19 resulted in a temporary shutdown at processors.

"The good thing is that we aren't backing up more cattle. We're slowly you know, slowly whittling away at it but you've got a huge increase in carcass weights which is a problem all by itself. There's just a whole lot more meat on the market than there was pre-covid."

He notes as we move through the backlog packers seem to be bidding on the heaviest cattle first.

"That's a good thing, a really good thing. So, if you don't have anything you own 1500 pounds or better, they're kind of asking you to wait. Hold off a little bit."

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.