Characteristics of Farmer Cattle Feeding

摘要

Fed cattle production grew by one-third during 1964-80. Meanwhile, the number of farmer cattle feeder operations fell by about half to only 113,000 as commercial feedlot enterprises effectively used capital, labor, and marketing to seize over 70 percent of the market. The drop in number of individual farmers who feed cattle should continue in the eighties. Overall, feedlots operated by farmers are becoming fewer but larger as numbers decline east of the Mississippi River, and as cattle feeder establish more farms in the western Corn Belt and southern High Plains.