In the U.S., there have been approximately three times more beef cows than dairy cows each year since 2001. As of 2024, it was estimated that there were about 28 million beef cows and only about 9.3 million dairy cows. Beef vs. dairy cows Both beef and dairy cows are bred for their respective purposes and farmers often look for different qualities in each. Dairy cows are often bigger, as they can produce a larger volume of milk. Beef cows on the other hand are generally shorter and there is more emphasis on their muscle growth, among other qualities. In 2022, over 28 billion pounds of beef were produced in the United States. U.S. milk production and consumption The United States was among the top consumers of milk worldwide in 2022, surpassed only by India and the European Union. The annual consumption of milk in the U.S. that year was just under 21 million metric tons. To keep up with this level of consumption, milk production in the U.S. has increased by over 60 billion pounds since 1999 and is expected to exceed 228 billion pounds by 2023. California and Wisconsin were the top producing states as of 2022, producing about 41.8 and 31.9 billion pounds of milk, respectively.

The US beef cattle production industry is currently marked by tight supply conditions and elevated prices. Over recent years, persistent drought conditions have led to significant herd liquidation, with beef cow numbers falling to historic lows. This contraction has created a bottleneck in calf production and feeder cattle availability, sustaining high cattle prices. In tandem, elevated feed costs have pressured prices upwards and profit down, driving revenue as cattle producers seek to pass on costs and prevent further profit declines. As herd rebuilding has remained slow, cattle supplies have remained low and kept prices high even as feed, energy and other key agricultural input costs have declined from their highs in 2022. Industry revenue has grown at a CAGR of 6.0% during the current period to reach an estimated $95.9 billion after declining by 2.4% in 2025 as reduced consumption and supplies limit sales. Consumer preferences are shifting in the beef cattle production industry. There is an increasing awareness of environmental and health-related concerns associated with beef consumption. Consequently, many consumers are reducing their intake of conventional beef, turning instead towards more sustainable options and alternatives that are perceived as healthier or higher quality, such as grass-fed and organic beef. This shift has spurred growth in these segments as consumers look for transparency and ethical farming practices. Retailers and restaurants have responded accordingly by offering more options that align with these consumer preferences. However, these trends also pose challenges, especially for smaller producers who face significant costs associated with transitioning to sustainable practices or achieving certifications like organic or "sustainably raised." Though opportunities for growth will continue to present themselves, the outlook for the industry as a whole does not look as positive in the next five years. Poultry, pork and plant-based proteins will threaten beef demand as they appeal to health-conscious customers, particularly as cattle prices are elevated. Climate change will also continue to introduce environmental pressures, demanding resilience and adaptability from producers. Periods of stable weather could facilitate herd rebuilding, leading to increased cattle supplies and dropping prices, but continued climatic fluctuations and extreme weather events could reduce the consistency of production and increase revenue volatility. Advancements in technology, such as drones and wearable sensors, promise to help optimize cattle management, improving operational efficiencies and animal welfare. These innovations, however, require investment and broader accessibility through government support to ensure equitable adoption across the industry. Additionally, while global trade disruptions remain a concern due to disease outbreaks and geopolitical tensions, US producers will have opportunities in niche market segments to differentiate themselves, counterbalancing some of these pressures. Overall, revenue for cattle producers is forecast to decline through 2030 at a CAGR of 0.4% to $94.0 billion.

How many cattle are in the world? The global live cattle population amounted to about 1.57 billion heads in 2023, up from approximately 1.51 million in 2021. Cows as livestock The domestication of cattle began as early as 10,000 to 5,000 years ago. From ancient times up to the present, cattle are bred to provide meat and dairy. Cattle are also employed as draft animals to plow the fields or transport heavy objects. Cattle hide is used for the production of leather, and dung for fuel and agricultural fertilizer. In 2022, India was home to the highest number of milk cows in the world. Cattle farming in the United States Cattle meat such as beef and veal is one of the most widely consumed types of meat across the globe, and is particularly popular in the United States. The United States is the top producer of beef and veal of any country worldwide. In 2021, beef production in the United States reached 12.6 million metric tons. Beef production appears to be following a positive trend in the United States. More than 33.07 million cattle were slaughtered both commercially and in farms annually in the United States in 2019, up from 33 million in the previous year.

The Census of Agriculture, produced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), provides a complete count of America's farms, ranches and the people who grow our food. The census is conducted every five years, most recently in 2022, and provides an in-depth look at the agricultural industry. This layer was produced from data obtained from the USDA National Agriculture Statistics Service (NASS) Large Datasets download page. The data were transformed and prepared for publishing using the Pivot Table geoprocessing tool in ArcGIS Pro and joined to county boundaries. The county boundaries are 2022 vintage and come from Living Atlas ACS 2022 feature layers.Dataset SummaryPhenomenon Mapped: Cattle productionGeographic Extent: 48 contiguous United States, Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto RicoProjection: Web Mercator Auxiliary SphereSource: USDA National Agricultural Statistics ServiceUpdate Frequency: 5 yearsData Vintage: 2022Publication Date: April 2024AttributesNote that some values are suppressed as "Withheld to avoid disclosing data for individual operations", "Not applicable", or "Less than half the rounding unit". These have been coded in the data as -999, -888, and -777 respectively. You should account for these values when symbolizing or doing any calculations.Many cattle production commodity fields are broken out into 6 or 7 ranges based on the number of head of cattle. For space reasons, a general sample of the fields is listed here.Commodities included in this layer: Cattle, (Excl Cows) - Inventory - Inventory of Cattle, (Excl Cows): (By number of head)Cattle, (Excl Cows) - InventoryCattle, (Excl Cows) - Operations with Inventory - Inventory of Cattle, (Excl Cows): (By number of head)Cattle, (Excl Cows) - Operations with InventoryCattle, Calves - Operations with Sales - Sales of Calves: (By number of head)Cattle, Calves - Operations with SalesCattle, Calves - Sales, Measured in Head - Sales of Calves: (By number of head)Cattle, Calves - Sales, Measured in HeadCattle, Calves, Veal, Raised or Sold - Number of OperationsCattle, Cows - Inventory; Cattle, Cows - Operations with InventoryCattle, Cows, Beef - Inventory - Inventory of Beef Cows: (By number of head)Cattle, Cows, Beef - InventoryCattle, Cows, Beef - Operations with Inventory - Inventory of Beef Cows: (By number of head)Cattle, Cows, Beef - Operations with InventoryCattle, Cows, Milk - Inventory - Inventory of Milk Cows: (By number of head)Cattle, Cows, Milk - InventoryCattle, Cows, Milk - Operations with Inventory - Inventory of Milk Cows: (By number of head)Cattle, Cows, Milk - Operations with InventoryCattle, >= 500 lbs - Operations with Sales - Sales of Cattle >= 500 lbs: (By number of head)Cattle, >= 500 lbs - Operations with SalesCattle, >= 500 lbs - Sales, Measured in Head - Sales of Cattle >= 500 lbs: (By number of head)Cattle, >= 500 lbs - Sales, Measured in HeadCattle, Heifers, >= 500 lbs, Milk Replacement, Production Contract - Operations with ProductionCattle, Heifers, >= 500 lbs, Milk Replacement, Production Contract - Production, Measured in HeadCattle, Incl Calves - Inventory - Inventory of Cattle, Incl Calves: (By number of head)Cattle, Incl Calves - InventoryCattle, Incl Calves - Operations with Inventory - Inventory of Cattle, Incl Calves: (By number of head)Cattle, Incl Calves - Operations with InventoryCattle, Incl Calves - Operations with Sales - Sales of Cattle, Incl Calves: (By number of head)Cattle, Incl Calves - Operations with SalesCattle, Incl Calves - Sales, Measured in US Dollars ($)Cattle, Incl Calves - Sales, Measured in Head - Sales of Cattle, Incl Calves: (By number of head)Cattle, Incl Calves - Sales, Measured in HeadCattle, On Feed - Inventory - Inventory of Cattle On Feed: (By number of head)Cattle, On Feed - InventoryCattle, On Feed - Operations with Inventory - Inventory of Cattle On Feed: (By number of head)Cattle, On Feed - Operations with InventoryCattle, On Feed - Operations with Sales For Slaughter - Sales of Cattle On Feed: (By number of head)Cattle, On Feed - Operations with Sales For SlaughterCattle, On Feed - Sales For Slaughter, Measured in Head - Sales of Cattle On Feed: (By number of head)Cattle, On Feed - Sales For Slaughter, Measured in HeadCattle, Production Contract, On Feed - Operations with ProductionCattle, Production Contract, On Feed - Production, Measured in HeadGeography NoteIn Alaska, one or more county-equivalent entities (borough, census area, city, municipality) are included in an agriculture census area.What can you do with this layer?This layer is designed for data visualization. Identify features by clicking on the map to reveal the pre-configured pop-up. You may change the field(s) being symbolized. When symbolizing other fields, you will need to update the popup accordingly. Simple summary statistics are supported by this data.Questions?Please leave a comment below if you have a question about this layer, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

United States Cattle Inventory: Cattle & Calves: Cows & Heifers That Have Calved: At the Beginning of the Yr: Milk Cows data was reported at 9,349.300 Head th in 2025. This records an increase from the previous number of 9,346.800 Head th for 2024. United States Cattle Inventory: Cattle & Calves: Cows & Heifers That Have Calved: At the Beginning of the Yr: Milk Cows data is updated yearly, averaging 9,349.300 Head th from Dec 1926 (Median) to 2025, with 17 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 9,450.400 Head th in 2021 and a record low of 9,208.600 Head th in 2014. United States Cattle Inventory: Cattle & Calves: Cows & Heifers That Have Calved: At the Beginning of the Yr: Milk Cows data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Economic Research Service. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.RI018: Cattle Inventory.

This EnviroAtlas dataset summarizes by county the number of farm operations with dairy cows and the number of heads they manage. The data come from the Census of Agriculture, which is administered every five years by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and include the years 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017. The Census classifies cattle managed on operations as beef cows, dairy cows, or other cattle (which encompasses heifers, steers, bulls, and calves). Only data regarding dairy cows are displayed in this layer. Operations are categorized into small, medium, or large, based on how many heads they manage. For each county and Census year, the dataset reports the number of farm operations that manage dairy cows, the number of heads on their property at the end of the Census year, and a breakdown of the operations into small, medium, and large. This dataset was produced by the US EPA to support research and online mapping activities related to EnviroAtlas. EnviroAtlas (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas) allows the user to interact with a web-based, easy-to-use, mapping application to view and analyze multiple ecosystem services for the contiguous United States. The dataset is available as downloadable data (https://edg.epa.gov/data/Public/ORD/EnviroAtlas) or as an EnviroAtlas map service. Additional descriptive information about each attribute in this dataset can be found in its associated EnviroAtlas Fact Sheet (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-fact-sheets).

The environmental impacts of beef cattle production and their effects on the overall sustainability of beef have become a national and international concern. Our objective was to quantify important environmental impacts of beef cattle production in the United States. Surveys and visits of farms, ranches and feedlots were conducted throughout seven regions (Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Northern Plains, Southern Plains, Northwest and Southwest) to determine common practices and characteristics of cattle production. These data along with other information sources were used to create about 150 representative production systems throughout the country, which were simulated with the Integrated Farm System Model using local soil and climate data. The simulations quantified the performance and environmental impacts of beef cattle production systems for each region. A farm-gate life cycle assessment was used to quantify resource use and emissions for all production systems including traditional beef breeds and cull animals from the dairy industry. Regional and national totals were determined as the sum of the production system outputs multiplied by the number of cattle represented by each simulated system. The average annual greenhouse gas and reactive N emissions associated with beef cattle production over the past five years were determined to be 243 ± 26 Tg carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) and 1760 ± 136 Gg N, respectively. Total fossil energy use was found to be 569 ± 53 PJ and blue water consumption was 23.2 ± 3.5 TL. Environmental intensities expressed per kg of carcass weight produced were 21.3 ± 2.3 kg CO2e, 155 ± 12 g N, 50.0 ± 4.7 MJ, and 2034 ± 309 L, respectively. These farm-gate values are being combined with post farm-gate sources of packing, processing, distribution, retail, consumption and waste handling to produce a full life cycle assessment of U.S. beef. This study is the most detailed, yet comprehensive, study conducted to date to provide baseline measures for the sustainability of U.S. beef. Resources in this dataset:Resource Title: Appendix A. Supplementary Data - Tables S1 to S8 (docx). File Name: Web Page, url: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0308521X18305675-mmc1.docx Direct download, docx.

Table S1. Important characteristics of farms and ranches simulated throughout seven regions of the U.S.

Table S2. Important characteristics of representative finishing facilities simulated in seven regions of the U.S.

Table S3. Important characteristics of dairy farms simulated throughout seven regions of the U.S.

Table S4. Summary of 25 years of weather data (daily solar radiation, daily mean temperature, annual precipitation and daily wind speed)1 used to simulate beef cattle operations in each area of the eastern regions.

Table S5. Soil characteristics used for locations simulated across the U.S.

Table S6. Cattle numbers by state and region as obtained or estimated from NASS (2017).

Table S7. Cattle numbers by state and region divided between traditional beef and dairy breeds as obtained or estimated from NASS (2017).

Table S8. Important resource inputs and emissions from representative cow-calf, stocker / background and feedlot operations expressed per unit of final carcass weight (CW) produced.

United States Cattle Inventory: Beef Heifers Entering Cow Herd July to December: Entering Cow Inventory: Following Year data was reported at 27,863.500 Head th in 2024. This records a decrease from the previous number of 28,013.000 Head th for 2023. United States Cattle Inventory: Beef Heifers Entering Cow Herd July to December: Entering Cow Inventory: Following Year data is updated yearly, averaging 30,064.500 Head th from Dec 2013 (Median) to 2024, with 12 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 31,640.700 Head th in 2018 and a record low of 27,863.500 Head th in 2024. United States Cattle Inventory: Beef Heifers Entering Cow Herd July to December: Entering Cow Inventory: Following Year data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Economic Research Service. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.RI018: Cattle Inventory.

Market Size statistics on the Beef Cattle Production industry in the US

Live Cattle rose to 232.95 USd/Lbs on July 30, 2025, up 1.40% from the previous day. Over the past month, Live Cattle's price has risen 10.53%, and is up 24.42% compared to the same time last year, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Live Cattle - values, historical data, forecasts and news - updated on July of 2025.

Cattle and calves, number by class and calf crop, United States (head x 1,000). Data are available on an annual basis.

Beef consumption in the United States reached a new high in 2021, when ** billion pounds were consumed. This is an increase in consumption of about *** percent compared to the previous year and the highest consumption recorded during the period under consideration. United States beef production The United States is the world’s top producer of beef and veal. In 2022, production exceeded **** million metric tons. To keep up with the production demand, the U.S. was home to about ** million beef cows in 2022, more than three times the number of dairy cows recorded that year. The shift towards plant-based foods There is a large trend among Generation Z consumers to adopt a more vegetarian or vegan diet. Over half of Gen Z consumers are mostly vegetarian, at a minimum, as of 2022. ** percent, however, are completely vegan, meaning they eat no animal products at all. With this shift away from animal proteins, it is no surprise that the consumption of meat substitutes is expected to exponentially grow within the next several years. By 2027, U.S. meat substitute consumption is forecast to reach ***** million kilograms.

The total beef production in the United States is estimated to be 26.96 billion pounds in 2023, down from 28.29 billion pounds in the previous year. Over the last two decades, the total U.S. beef production has fluctuated slightly but remained stable overall.

Beef retail in the United States Beef has the highest retail sales of any fresh meat in the United States, as of 2021. In that year, over 30 billion U.S. dollars worth of fresh beef were sold in the United States. The retail price for 100 percent ground beef in the United States was 4.8 U.S. dollars per pound in 2022, up from 3.95 U.S. dollars in 2020. Beef brisket, on the other hand, was priced on average around 8.84 U.S. dollars per pound in major grocery retailers.

U.S. beef consumption The United States consumes more beef than any other country in the world. Consumption of beef amounted to around 59 pounds per capita on an annual basis. This was projected to decrease slowly until 2032.

United States Cattle Inventory: Heifers Entering Cow Herd from January to June: Percent Entering: January to June data was reported at 44.058 % in 2023. This records a decrease from the previous number of 44.126 % for 2022. United States Cattle Inventory: Heifers Entering Cow Herd from January to June: Percent Entering: January to June data is updated yearly, averaging 40.333 % from Dec 2014 (Median) to 2023, with 9 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 44.126 % in 2022 and a record low of 37.664 % in 2015. United States Cattle Inventory: Heifers Entering Cow Herd from January to June: Percent Entering: January to June data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Economic Research Service. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.RI018: Cattle Inventory.

This statistic shows the total number of slaughtered cattle in the United States from 2000 to 2023. In 2023, about 32.8 million cattle were slaughtered in the United States. The total number of cattle includes commercial and farm slaughtered cattle.

United States Cattle Inventory: Heifers Entering Cow Herd July to December: Heifers Entering the Herd from July to December data was reported at 2,348.833 Head th in 2023. This records a decrease from the previous number of 2,515.198 Head th for 2022. United States Cattle Inventory: Heifers Entering Cow Herd July to December: Heifers Entering the Herd from July to December data is updated yearly, averaging 2,515.198 Head th from Dec 2014 (Median) to 2023, with 9 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 2,595.956 Head th in 2019 and a record low of 2,326.300 Head th in 2020. United States Cattle Inventory: Heifers Entering Cow Herd July to December: Heifers Entering the Herd from July to December data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Economic Research Service. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.RI018: Cattle Inventory.

Graph and download economic data for Producer Price Index by Commodity: Farm Products: Slaughter Cattle (WPU0131) from Jan 1947 to Jun 2025 about slaughter, cattle, livestock, agriculture, commodities, PPI, inflation, price index, indexes, price, and USA.

Cattle Inventory: Beef Heifers Entering Cow Herd July to December: Percent Entering from July to December data was reported at 22.335 % in 2023. This records a decrease from the previous number of 22.878 % for 2022. Cattle Inventory: Beef Heifers Entering Cow Herd July to December: Percent Entering from July to December data is updated yearly, averaging 21.009 % from Dec 2014 (Median) to 2023, with 9 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 22.878 % in 2022 and a record low of 15.419 % in 2020. Cattle Inventory: Beef Heifers Entering Cow Herd July to December: Percent Entering from July to December data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Economic Research Service. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.RI018: Cattle Inventory.

Feeder Cattle rose to 339.82 USd/Lbs on July 31, 2025, up 0.12% from the previous day. Over the past month, Feeder Cattle's price has risen 11.12%, and is up 34.40% compared to the same time last year, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Feeder Cattle - values, historical data, forecasts and news - updated on July of 2025.

This statistic shows the number of milk cows in the U.S. from 1999 to 2023. According to the report, there were approximately *** million milk cows in the United States in 2023, down from about *** million milk cows in 2022.