At the Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting in San Diego, Senior farm and ranch broadcaster Ron Hays spoke with the chairman of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Robby Kirkland. TCFA represents feedlots in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Our Coverage from San Diego is powered by Farm Data Services of Stillwater.
Robby Kirkland, chairman of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association since October, has spent most of his time in the role dealing with a screw worm outbreak in southern Mexico. “November 24 is when we got the official call that they’ve had cases in southern Mexico and closed the border,” he said. Since that time- the border was closed into the early days of 2025- reopened for a short time, closed again, reopened for less than a week through the entry port in Arizona and now shut totally again.
Editor’s Note- Since our interview with Kirkland- screwworms have been found much closer to the US-Mexican border and as of Wednesday evening, July 9th- the US border has been closed for imports of Mexican cattle again. Click here for the word from USDA and click here for the reaction from the NCBA, calling for a full commitment from the Trump Administration to find the resources to build a US based sterile fly facility in south Texas.
The border closure has had a major impact on U.S. feedlots. “A little over a million head typically would come across from Mexico,” Kirkland explained, mostly going into feedyards in Texas and surrounding states. With the U.S. cattle herd already at a 75-year low, he said losing those cattle “put our cattle numbers at a real stretch.”
The tight cattle supply has created challenges across the industry. “We’re… in the mid-80%… capacity standpoint,” Kirkland said about feedyard numbers. He stressed it’s not just feedlots being affected but also stocker operators and others who rely on those cattle. “It just makes things really tight.”
Kirkland said producers are finding ways to adapt. “We can’t just sit here and completely rely on the opening,” he said. “We still have cattle to graze our lands… and we have to look at what’s a new direction.” He also pointed out changes like adding more days on feed and using beef-on-dairy cattle. “The market has told us… we want pounds.”
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
