House and Senate Agriculture Committee leaders are hoping to utilize the lame duck session of Congress after the midterm elections to advance the Farm Bill. Republicans and Democrats have both indicated their desire to reach an agreement and committee staff have used the month of October to begin reconciling differences between the House passed and Senate Agriculture Committee passed versions of the bill.

The U.S. beef packing industry has consolidated dramatically over the past 40 years, and plant size sits at the center of that story. In 1980, the four largest packers handled 36% of steer and heifer purchases (MacDonald, 2024). The average plant owned by a top-four firm processed about 417,000 cattle in 1980 and more than 1,000,000 by 2002.

The U.S. beef industry continues to navigate a complex economic environment characterized by historically low cattle inventories, strong consumer demand, and shifting international trade dynamics. As of January 1, 2026, the U.S. cattle inventory totaled approximately 86.2 million head, including 27.6 million beef cows, reflecting one of the smallest cattle populations in decades.[1]

The United States imports roughly 6.5 billion pounds of beef per year, meeting about 20% of domestic demand, and that share has been climbing as the U.S. cattle herd sits at a 75-year low. In the first half of 2026 alone, the U.S. brought in 3.3 billion pounds, up 12% from the year before. Brazil led with 717 million pounds, followed by Australia at 700 million pounds, Canada at 489 million, Mexico at 398 million, and New Zealand at 371 million.

Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (mCOOL or COOL) in the United States—especially the high-profile requirements for beef and pork—was largely unsuccessful when previously implemented. The requirement imposed significant costs with little measurable benefit in consumer demand or producer returns, faced repeated WTO rulings as discriminatory, and was repealed for muscle cuts and ground beef/pork in December 2015.

Sustainability can be defined as meeting our needs today without compromising our capabilities to meet our needs in the future (Brundtland, 1987). Classically, sustainability encompasses environmental, economic, and social pillars and the interactions and trade-offs therein.

In recent years, there have been significant public and policy commitments to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from all industry sectors. This has been driven by an increasing concern over the changing climate and the role that anthropogenic emissions play in this process.

Cattle production is a cornerstone of U.S. agriculture, but it faces growing scrutiny regarding sustainability. A key driver of industry adoption of more sustainable production systems is consumer demand for environmentally responsible food products, along with evolving opportunities for market differentiation (Ishaq et al., 2024).

The United States is a major global beef supplier, operating a highly diverse production system that spans extensive rangelands and intensive feedyards. Figure 1 provides a conceptual overview of the U.S. beef supply chain, illustrating the major production stages and their connections from cow-calf through feedyard and processing, consistent with established descriptions of the supply chain in the literature (Thoma et al., 2017; Asem-Hiablie et al., 2019; Rotz et al., 2019).

Beef-production systems play a key role in the intersection between food production, biodiversity conservation, and preservation of ecosystem functions (Gerber et al., 2015). As global interest in the concept of “Nature Positive” increases, in parallel to an increasing world population and demand for protein sources, it will be necessary to ensure that beef-producing landscapes contribute to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) mission of “halting and reversing” global biodiversity loss (Convention on Biological Diversity, 2022).

Global beef systems have undergone enormous changes in recent decades, steadily increasing in outputs while holding inventory relatively steady (Steinfeld et al., 2010). This progress has been in no small part due to improvements to genetic potential across many traits. As industries around the world work to produce high-quality protein while balancing economics, animal well-being, and environmental impact, genetic improvement will be an even more important driver.

Sheep exhibit a nocturnal peak in growth hormone secretion with regular circadian fluctuations, making the study of feeding time effects on their physiological functions highly important and practical. This study assigned 12 Dorper × Hu crossbred rams to daytime and nighttime feeding groups to explore how feeding patterns affect their digestive metabolism, blood parameters, intestinal microflora, and metabolites.

Developing beef replacement heifers into productive mature animals requires nutritional strategies that support adequate growth, timely puberty, and optimal pregnancy outcomes. Direct-fed microbials (DFM), particularly spore-forming Bacillus species, can improve forage digestibility and host performance by modulating the gut microbial community.

Protein hydrolysates have been used in the pet food industry for years. Recently, insects have demonstrated their potential antioxidant and antihypertensive activities, which may be enhanced through enzymatic hydrolysis, generating new functional peptides.

Leg health is one of the main welfare challenges in modern broiler production because fast-growing birds are more likely to develop locomotion and skeletal problems. Most studies evaluate only one or two indicators, which can make it difficult to understand the overall welfare response to different management strategies.

Shearing pregnant ewes is commonly done to improve cleanliness around lambing, but it may also influence how lambs grow before birth. In this study, we evaluated whether shearing ewes early in pregnancy (around day 50) affects blood flow to the developing lamb, fetal growth, and lamb performance after birth.

Lameness is a major issue affecting welfare, milk production, and farm economics in dairy herds, and early detection is a challenge in commercial conditions. This study analyzed routine milking and behavioral data from 67 lame cows to investigate changes occurring prior to clinical detection.

The October Edition of The Giving Herd, an ASAS Foundation Newsletter

Dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) are commonly used as a protein source in finishing cattle diets; however, increased availability of canola meal (CM) from biodiesel production has increased interest in CM as an alternative protein source. This study evaluated the effects of replacing DDGS with CM on nutrient and amino acid (AA) intake, flow, and digestibility.

Full-fat rice bran (FFRB) is a valuable feed alternative, but its available energy values for gestating and lactating sows remain poorly defined. Although the substitution method is widely used to determine the energy content of feed ingredients, the optimal inclusion level of FFRB in sow have not been clearly elucidated.