An appreciation of the Valley’s biggest ‘crop’
Over the last several months, the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business has had the opportunity to highlight the complexities of the agricultural industry. In addition, as the Executive Director of Imperial Valley Vegetable Growers Association, I have provided articles on the vegetable industry. Vegetables are certainly an important part of the diverse crops grown here and consistently are approximately 25 percent of the acreage harvested and in 2016, 48 percent of gross value for Imperial County.
Beef, however, is the single largest “crop” with a gross value in 2016 of $400,614,000. Cattle here has been the No. 1 commodity since 1957. Beef, as a food source, has the most unique and complex lifecycle of any food we consume. It takes two to three years to bring beef from farm to fork, unlike a vegetable with only a 90-day cycle from seed to fork. Nationally, beef represents a $67.56 billion industry. We do like our beef.
Like all things agriculture in the United States, beef production has evolved. The start of commercial cattle production moved a herd from one grassland field to another. The first widespread early cattle feed yards in the nation were built by cottonseed oil mill operations in the 1850s to utilize cotton byproducts as feed. About 1914, due to a drop in the number of cattle, the industry started feeding cattle at an early age, which resulted in a higher quality beef. Here in the Imperial Valley, our feed lots obtain calves at six months of age.
The cattle rancher, as with the rest of agricultural community, is “more mature”. The average age of a principle beef cattle rancher is 58.3. In the United States, of the 913,246 cattle and calf operations, 91 percent are family owned or individually operated. And, yes, women are included, with 11 percent of them operated by females. Only 26,586 of the cattle and calf operations are feedlot producers.
The U.S. cattle inventory in 2017 was 93.5 million, with 31.2 million of those beef cows. Nationally, the average beef cow herd size is 40 head of cattle. I guess that made my father a cattle baron; we consistently had at least 120 head on the two pieces of grassland — and 60 miles apart. Growing up, Daddy would ask my mother and I to check on the cattle every once in a while — and it always seemed that at least three of them would have “escaped” to the next-door field. Over time, I learned to herd cattle with the family Buick. But I digress.
In Imperial County, approximately 340,000 head for cattle are here at any given time, with a small drop in the summer.
As mentioned, we do like our beef. In 2016, we consumed nearly 25.7 billion pounds. The average amount of beef consumed per person is 55.7 pounds per year. In our household, it must be much higher than that. I have eaten more beef since I moved to the Imperial Valley over 15 years ago than I ever did in Texas. The price of USDA Choice beef sold in retail grocery stores in 2016 was $5.96 down from $6.29. The photo is my family’s meat counter in Abilene circa 1954. Note the price of hamburger meat per pound then was $0.30 and that 2018 dollars is $3.02 per pound
The U.S. beef exports market (including variety meats, which include things like beef liver, and tongue) for 2016 is as follows:
Japan: 258,653 metric tons; $1,510 million
Mexico: 242,373 metric tons; $975 million
South Korea: 179,280 metric tons; $1,059 million
Canada: 116,266 metric tons; $758 million
Hong Kong: 112,770 metric tons; $684 million
Middle East: 104,488 metric tons; $216 million
We continually point out that California leads the nation in agricultural production. While cattle is our top commodity here, California is not the top feedlot. Texas leads with 2.42 million followed by Nebraska with 2.37 million.
Our Imperial County feedlots are a major part of our economy. They include Foster Feed Yards, Superior Cattle, Brandt Beef, El Toro Land & Cattle, Phillips Cattle and Mesquite Cattle.
Fifteen-plus years ago, a number of cattlemen joined together to build and operate what was then Brawley Beef. It was then sold to National Beef, a company based in the Midwest. This facility closed its doors for a number of reasons — a perfect storm situation, which resulted in the loss of jobs for the north-end community. One of the beef families after a couple of years made the decision to reopen the facility — on a smaller scale. One World Beef, under the leadership of Eric Brandt, today employs more than 300 staff. Both the Imperial Irrigation District through its Local Entity grant program and the County of Imperial with its Ag Benefit loan program funded the start-up of the operation. We applaud all three — One World Beef, IID and the County — for their support of this important industry.
Thank these locally owned and operated cattlemen for that great steak dinner you will have in the very near future, perhaps even tonight. Kay Pricola is the executive director of the Coalition for Labor, Agriculture and Business. She can be reached at kay@colabimperial.com