Advertisement
Subscribe For $2.50/Month
Print Editions
Shinnston News & Harrison County Journal
  • Local Stories
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
  • E-edition
  • Legals
  • Spiritual
    • Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston
    • Transcendental Meditation
    • Parabola
  • My Account
No Result
View All Result
Shinnston News & Harrison County Journal
No Result
View All Result
Shinnston News & Harrison County Journal
No Result
View All Result

Latin American Parasite, Other Market Forces Depress Cattle Production in West Virginia

Mountain Media, LLC by Mountain Media, LLC
September 9, 2025
in Local Stories
0

By Stephen Smoot

“We have a lack of live cattle,” said Leanna Basye of  the Lost River-based Teets Cattle Company in partial explanation of the drop of production over the past year. The United States Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service publishes multiple monthly releases under “Mountain State Reporter” that detail agricultural production trends in both West Virginia and across the nation.

Late last month, that publication noted that commercial cattle slaughter, which indicates the carcass weight after slaughter, totaled 750,000 pounds of live weight in July 2025, but that month’s total had dropped 20 percent from July 2024. The report from January indicated a 900,000, or 24 percent, decline from January 2024 to January 2025.

Basye shared that much of the drop comes from the impact of New World Screwworm outbreaks in Central America and Mexico. “Live imports are shutdown due to the screwworm,” she shared, then added that “a lot of the cattle that were being killed were being imported.”

Recently found in a Maryland human who traveled in Central America, the NWS periodically breaks out in the tropical regions of the Western Hemisphere. The worm itself is a larvae hatched from eggs laid by a species of fly. These larvae seek out warmth and use razor sharp tiny mandibles to burrow into the body. They can infect any warm-blooded mammal and also many species of birds.

USDA officials have deployed to Mexico over the past year to release millions of sterile male flies to push down the number of live births. This is the typical and effective means to control these outbreaks. Also, stepped up Customs and Border Patrol measures stop both commercial and private attempts to bring restricted products across the southern border that may spread the NWS.

Basye also explains that market forces have incentivized farmers holding onto heifers for breeding potential. In the cattle world, a heifer indicates a young female that has not bred yet. She has the youth and health for prime breeding.

The cost of feed has also played a role in the trends of cattle markets. According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve publication FRED, or Federal Reserve Economic Data, the cost of cattle feed, supplements, concentrates, and premixes hit a price index 10-year low in Oct 2017 at 92.700.

The 10-year high point came in Aug of 2022 at 141.042, but dropped to 115.395 in April of 2024 and has remained steady since. It set at 114.735 in July of 2025.

Also cattle production is linked to “a lot of natural effects in the country,” said Basye. The droughts that plagued central Appalachia and the entire state of West Virginia on 2024 had a powerful impact on hay production as grass grew much more slowly in the hot and dry conditions. “Last year some local farmers did not have feed for cattle,” she noted.

Trends look more worrisome in the long term. NASS produced a 25 year cattle inventory report on July 1 that showed the significant shrinkage of the national herd from just under 113 million in 2000 to just over 93 million today. That includes 28.7 million beef cows, 9.45 million milk cows, and a 33,1 million “calf crop.”

US beef cattle declines are also shown in import-export numbers, which fell by 1.1 percent in 2024. Imports, despite restrictions on beef cattle from Mexico, spiked by almost 25 percent in 2024 by about 4.6 billion pounds of beef and veal.

Decline in herd numbers reflects the most ominous trend in both the beef cattle industry and agriculture in the United States overall. “There are no young people to step in” and take farming into the next generation in America. “The younger generation isn’t getting much into it.”

Normally, higher prices and the promise of higher profits will encourage expansion of production. That is how the free market operates. In this case, the lack of farmers to take advantage has prevented the natural free market response to high prices.

As supplies dwindle and the price of materials rises, the impact on beef prices at the grocery store has been dramatic. Grocery stores themselves remain at the mercy of the supply and demand cycle and beef prices have to reflect the cost of their inputs so that each step along the way from upstream to downstream can make enough money to make operating worthwhile.

A glimmer of hope, however, may lie in the younger generation. Last summer, youth farmers had the highest dollar amount of sales ever seen at the Tri County Fair. Additionally, many farm experts are optimistic that the video game generations will find agriculture more appealing as the main work of the farmer moves from a tractor in the field to computer control panels and automated equipment.

Previous Post

Waymo Anyone?

Next Post

Attorney General McCuskey files opening brief defending the Save Women’s Sports Act in Supreme Court

Next Post
Governor Morrisey Comes to Shinnston to Speak With Students, Sign Bills

Governor Patrick Morrisey Announces NCAA Rule Changes to March Madness Selection Process

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Account
  • Cart
  • Checkout
  • Communication preferences
  • Contact Support
  • Contact Us
  • Content restricted
  • Digital Subscriptions
  • Edit Profile
  • Home
  • Home
  • Home (BACK)
  • Log In
  • Log In
  • Log Out
  • login
  • Login
  • LoginPress
  • Lost Password
  • Main
  • Membership Account
  • My Account
  • Newsletter
  • Newsletter
  • Newsletter
  • Newsletter upgrade
  • profile
  • register
  • Register
  • Register
  • Registration
  • Reset Password
  • Serving North Central WV Since 1897
  • Shop
  • Sub Reg
  • Subscribe to the Shinnston News & Harrison County Journal
  • Subscribe to the Shinnston News & Harrison County Journal
  • Thank You

© 2025 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

  • Login
Forgot Password?
Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.
body::-webkit-scrollbar { width: 7px; } body::-webkit-scrollbar-track { border-radius: 10px; background: #f0f0f0; } body::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb { border-radius: 50px; background: #dfdbdb }
No Result
View All Result
  • Local Stories
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Contact Us
  • E-edition
  • Legals
  • Spiritual
    • Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston
    • Transcendental Meditation
    • Parabola
  • My Account

© 2025 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.