Today the entire beef industry — from producers to processors — is economically incentivized to produce heavier animals. Ty Lawrence, West Texas A&M University animal science professor and director of the BCRC, predicts that carcass weights will continue to increase, potentially reaching 1,500 lb. in the near future.
Lawrence was a keynote speaker during the 2025 Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) Symposium in Amarillo last week. He says the industry has already seen harvests of cattle approaching that weight, with some producers currently feeding cattle up to 2,300 lb.
“We can feed cattle today to much bigger weights and be more profitable than you’ve ever considered,” Lawrence says.
BIF attendee and Kansas beef producer Joe Epperly from Wamego, Kan., summarizes, “The most hard-hitting comment at BIF was Lawrence’s 1,500-lb. carcass prediction by the end of his career. The implications of that to genetic selection, cost of production and cow size are far ranging. It will be a challenge for producers in every segment to meet.”
More than 400 beef producers, breed association leaders and industry professionals participated in two and a half days of educational programming focused on beef industry profitability and sustainability.
Tuesday, June 10, the event kicked off with the Young Producer Symposium. Wednesday’s general session focused on “Beef Industry Profitability: Conflicting market signals and profit drivers in the beef value chain.” Thursday’s general session theme was “Sustainability: Improving our product through selection, applications of technology and data integration.”
Wednesday and Thursday afternoon technical breakout sessions focused on a range of beef-production and genetic-improvement topics.
Bradley Wolter, a symposium attendee from Aviston, Ill., says, “Larger carcasses will be a critical part of bridging the supply gap in the near term. Identifying genetic association with late-term mortality and morbidity requires further research and coordination on the part of breeding entities.”
He says the chasm remains between exponentially larger finished carcasses that optimize fixed packer costs verses a target of smaller cows for biological optimum on the ranch.
“More collaborative, holistic data analysis with integrated research is needed to avoid industry sub-optimization and ensure competitiveness on the world stage,” Wolter summarizes.
Scott Greiner, Virginia Tech professor and Extension animal scientist, agrees with Epperly and Walter saying the message that resonated with many in attendance was the continued emphasis on increasing carcass weights by the feedlot and packing sectors, and the impact it will have at the cow-calf sector as it relates to cow size and production costs.
“This trend is not new, but I think the way things were conveyed by several speakers in terms of the economics and market signals, sure seems like bigger is what will continue to be a primary emphasis,” Greiner says.
Ken Odde, 2025/26 BIF vice president from South Dakota, says: “Two of the real questions about feeding cattle this long [to 1500-lb carcass weight] is what happens to the carcass traits as you do that? What happens to feed efficiency?”
One of the sessions that stood out to Odde during the symposium was a presentation on a project at South Dakota State University in the Advancements in End Product Improvement breakout session — “Extended days on feed: Influences on growth performance, efficiency and carcass characteristics of steers and heifers of different proportions of Angus and Limousin genetics.”
Is the U.S. Behind?
“From conversations in the hallway, I learned that the U.S. beef industry is behind on methane research, and if we are going to compete in the global marketplace, we need to get a move on,” Epperly says. “Australian Angus will release a methane research EPD in 2025, and we have barely enough data in the U.S. to see differences. That Australian data includes a lot of American bulls, so we will have data whether some American breeders like it or not. The optics for some are unfavorable, but whatever we can do to keep the doors open for our product the better off we will be.”
Likewise, symposium speakers referenced the Brazilian beef industry and how it is poised for continued success and rapid growth given its bountiful resources, not the least of which is its people.
“You see it not only in its scaled adoption of AI, but through the numerous young geneticists who make up the audience,” Walter says. “The U.S. industry needs to continue to invest in its genetic improvement through both public and private partnerships to maintain a position of world leadership.”
Young Producer Focus
“The Young Producer Symposium opened with a message about ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants,’” says Elizabeth Dressler, a graduate student who attended the symposium. “This resonated with me as I thought about all the research and progress the beef industry has made over the years. I thought it was a great way to open the conference by paying respect to the work that has been done in the past, as we look into the future the rest of the conference.”
Wolter adds there’s an excitement among young people in the beef industry.
“These young leaders are creatively engaged with our consumers unlike the previous generation,” he says. “I believe that will only create more demand and opportunities for an industry despite some questions and uncertainties with how cattle interact with their environment.”
Other Key Topics
Wolter shares these other key topics discussed in the meeting rooms and hallways during BIF 2025.
- The beef-on-dairy supply chain is in the process of redefining production planning, execution and realization. The more aligned production systems will improve consumer outcomes and establish new baselines for production efficiency.
“Traditional beef-on-beef production systems must be learning from these efforts to capture more value from its traditional supply chain,” he says. - The U.S. genetic improvement infrastructure must find a way to collect more commercial phenotypes within the supply chain.
“We need to characterize our genetics where the improvement in most needed,” he explains. - The industry needs to continue to understand consumer expectations for the role of ruminants in the environment.
“More productive dialog among industry participants is needed to determine paths of response forward,” he summarizes.
“Attending the Beef Improvement Federation Annual Symposium always feels like a bit of a family reunion,” says Troy Rowan, University of Tennessee assistant professor of beef cattle genomics. “There’s no other meeting that brings producers, academics, Extension and industry together in the same way around a set of common goals.”
Rowan says the beef industry is in a unique situation right now, and the BIF program was a perfect response to those conditions and the role that genetics can play in shaping the future.
“We talked about cow-calf/carcass antagonisms and opportunities, supply chains, sustainability, data capture, AI (both artificial insemination and artificial intelligence), and most importantly, how we continue to use genetics to drive producer profitability,” he summarizes.
Watch Drovers.com for summaries of some of the key presentations during the next few weeks. BIF will be posting recordings of all presentations at BIFSymposium.com.
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