In today’s Beef Buzz, senior farm and ranch broadcaster Ron Hays speaks with Don Close of Terrain about the defining forces that shaped the beef cattle industry in 2025. Close says the year began with a known constraint, noting the industry entered 2025 with “the tightest supplies we’ve worked with in better than 50 years,” but the biggest surprise turned out to be demand rather than supply.
Close explains that while factors like the Mexican border closure and tariff issues with Brazil mattered, they were secondary. “The big surprise was demand,” he said, emphasizing that consumer appetite for beef remained exceptionally strong throughout the year. That demand, he added, has stayed firm even as the industry moved toward the end of 2025.
According to Close, consumers have clearly bought into the higher-quality beef produced following the last drought-driven herd reduction. “I think the consumer buy-in is absolutely real and driven by the better quality product,” he said. He also pointed to an often-overlooked influence on demand — the growing use of GLP-1 drugs — explaining that when one adult in a household changes their diet, “they’re changing the diet for that whole household.”
Despite steadily rising retail prices, Close says consumers have not been scared away. “Yes, beef prices are strong,” he said, but added that buying power remains solid when prices are viewed in relation to wages and overall economic growth. While beef prices rose above historical benchmarks during 2025, Close noted that they are “still not out of the historical norm” when viewed in a broader economic context.
For cattle producers, Close described higher prices as “a godsend,” even as input costs have climbed. Many producers, however, remain cautious about expansion. He said the most common reasons include repairing balance sheets and lingering memories of costly replacement purchases in 2013 and 2014. Looking ahead, Close noted that packers have begun adjusting capacity late in 2025, which will reshape regional competition for cattle, but he expects “a keen level of competition for that available supply” to continue.
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.
