Ask cattle producers what keeps them up at night and they’ll mention weather, markets and politics. Push a little further, and another worry surfaces — people.
In plain terms, the industry is dealing with an aging ownership base, not enough skilled help and fuzzy answers about who’s next in line.
“We’ve got an aging group of owners and not a lot of active working employees underneath them,” says Sam Hands, a cow-calf producer and feedlot owner from Garden City, Kan. “That’s a real threat to capacity if we don’t address it.”
On the cow-calf side, many ranches are still largely family labor. On the feedlot and stocker side, managers describe a constant grind to recruit and keep reliable hands in jobs that are physical, often remote, and competing with industries that offer regular hours and indoor work.
It’s not just about filling today’s open jobs; it’s about who is gaining the skills, relationships and equity they’ll need to run the place tomorrow.
The Labor Pinch on Feedlots and Ranches
Terrain senior animal protein analyst Don Close paints a picture of a beef industry that is on the cusp of major generational change, with labor pressures shaping decisions from the ranch to the packing plant.
There are reports of feedlots running with half the crew they need. Cow‑calf operations are relying heavily on aging owners.
“Labor is now as critical a resource as grass and water — and just as scarce,” Close summarizes. “We’re not just short of hired help; we’re short of heirs.”
Close points out technology is helping, but it doesn’t fully replace skilled people. Producers and feedlot operators can buy all the technology tools available to monitor health and water, but it still takes people who’ll show up to pull the sick calves or fix the water tanks.
Why Current Market Margins Create a Succession Window
On succession, Close says he is struck by the age profile of producers, and the survey results on who expects a next generation to join the business. He notes that many operators are in their late 50s, and a sizable share do not see anyone coming in behind them. As he puts it, “35% to 40% of those guys, they’re 57 to 58 years old, and 40% of them are not anticipating anybody joining. There is going to be a lot of property transition over the next five years.”
He ties that directly to today’s profit environment. Looking at recent years, Close is blunt about what current margins mean for long‑term viability: “If you look at the last three years, if you’re not profitable right now, it’s not ever going to happen.”
That profitability, he argues, makes this a rare window to actively bring family back and set up succession.
“If you’re talking of bringing a family member back within the next five years, I would say today is about as good an opportunity as it’s going to get,” he stresses.
Close worries that if producers wait for the next phase of the cycle, both the economics and the enthusiasm of the next generation may fade. He cautions that if the industry moves into expansion and “the market goes into more traditional margin pressure, the intentions of coming to the operation today may fade before it’s ever implemented.”
For those without successors, he expects many operations to exit in a familiar pattern: “I just think that there’s a whole bunch of them that it will be a classic dispersal and it will be a startup of a whole new operation on that land.”
“We’re Losing a Population of People Who Want to Go Back Home”
The 2026 State of the Beef Industry conversations don’t sugarcoat the challenge — labor is tight, land is expensive and the next generation has options that don’t involve cold mornings and late-night calvings.
Land and labor are tied together in ways the survey captured clearly. As Jamie Courter, University of Missouri beef Extension specialist, puts it, the problem isn’t only that there are fewer young people interested in production agriculture — it’s that the window to get them on the land is closing fast.
“We’re losing a population of people who want to go back home and farm,” she says. “Those places that have been around for a very long time go on the market, and they’re not replaced by someone who wants to farm. They’re replaced by a data center, or a subdivision, or solar panels.”
Courter, who is also a first-generation beef producer, adds for first‑generation producers, the barrier is even higher. “For those of us who are first‑generation — it’s unaffordable. It’s unattainable to buy that land.”
That leaves many ranch families stuck between two hard realities:
- The next generation can’t afford to buy in at current land values.
- If nobody in the family takes over, the land is likely to leave agriculture altogether — cutting local capacity and community right along with it.
It’s a slow‑motion hollowing‑out of the production base that doesn’t show up in a single headline, but it’s written all over the survey’s concerns about land access, recreational buyers, urban sprawl and non‑ag development pressure.
Rethinking Legacy: Passing the Ranch to Someone Who Doesn’t Share Your Last Name
Courter challenges producers to think outside the box and consider keeping the ranch in agriculture may not always mean keeping it in the family name.
“Can you partner with someone? Can you find a first‑generation person?” she questions, adding, “where you can teach them everything you know and pass this down even though they don’t share your last name?”
That’s a different way to think about legacy. Instead of viewing succession as a simple parent‑to‑child handoff, it opens the door to:
- Equity partnerships between retiring ranchers and young producers who bring sweat equity, education and tech skills but lack capital.
- Long‑term leases or share arrangements that keep land in production while spreading risk and responsibility.
- Mentorship‑driven transitions, where seasoned operators commit time to teaching management, not just labor tasks.
For multi‑generation outfits, that may feel like a big cultural shift. But the survey makes it clear the alternative — no plan, no successors and eventual sale to the highest non‑ag bidder — is already happening across the countryside.
At Drovers, we share your passion for agriculture and the beef industry. Our State of the Beef Industry report sought to gauge producer attitudes, commitment and management practices. The report is designed to provide a benchmark of information to help you make successful decisions. Join us the week of Sept. 14 on Drovers.com, FarmJournalTV.com, AgDay, AgriTalk and our Drovers daily e-newsletter as we analyze the survey results and discuss what they mean for your herd.
