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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Legacy of 2023 drought plagues livestock producers this winter
Feed supplies are tight, hay prices are up and other financial pressures abound for Iowa’s cattle industry
Jan. 28, 2024 5:00 am, Updated: Jan. 29, 2024 9:30 am
When hay started to sprout on Steve Swenka’s fields back in June, he realized right away it was going to be a rough growing season.
His pastures were already struggling to grow when he turned his 120 Angus beef cows loose in May. The 600 acres of his Tiffin property didn’t see an abundance of rain all summer.
He knew he was going to be short on hay — by about two-thirds, according to his estimates. It wouldn’t be enough to get his cattle through the winter. So, he bought 120 bales of extra hay before his first cutting ever left the ground, cutting a cool $12,000 into his bottom line.
“As the summer unfolded and it kept getting drier and drier, I think the hay supplies just kept getting tighter,” Swenka, 53, said. “I could see the handwriting on the wall. It wasn't hard to tell that it wasn't going to be just me. It would be everybody.”
He isn’t the only livestock producer reeling from Iowa’s third year of drought in a row.
Across the state, ranchers have reported tight or insufficient feed levels following 2023’s low hay yields and poor hay quality. Many have had to buy more hay to supplement their own stocks, with above-normal hay prices cutting into their bottom lines. Non-feed costs are also creeping higher.
Producers like Swenka are now focused on getting their cows through the winter and hoping for better conditions next year.
“This was one of the most challenging summers we've had probably since the drought of 1988,” Swenka said. “Probably for the first time in 40 years, it sure is on my mind every time we take hay out and I see the bales disappearing from our supply.”
Hay yields fell
2023 marked Iowa’s third year in a row of drought and its 22nd driest in 151 years of records. Almost the entire state was in some form of drought starting in June, with exceptional drought covering 5 percent of the state at its peak. 2023 also tied 2016 as the 10th warmest year on record.
As a result, Iowa’s hay production took a hit: Yields dropped to 2.95 million acres, down 18 percent from 2022, with heavy influence from drought. All hay harvested acres were estimated at 1.01 million acres, a 160,000-acre dip from the year before.
Hay quality suffered due to the drought, too. Cuttings were consistently ahead of their five-year averages throughout the season. Hay conditions averaged 46 percent good to excellent for the season as a whole, reaching their lowest quality since at least 2019.
The drought also impacted other feed sources for cattle, like pastures. Their conditions largely declined throughout the season with lows hitting in mid-September and early October, when only 15 percent of pastures were in good to excellent condition. Pastures experienced their worst conditions since 2020.
Many producers chopped some of their corn crops for silage to make up for the hay deficit. Some grew hay on land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program that was released during the summer’s emergency drought conditions. Others mixed various feeds — like distillers grains — into their hay to make a makeshift salad for their cattle.
The journey to keeping cattle fed throughout the winter comes at a cost, especially after a tough growing season.
“Winter feed tends to be one of the biggest costs for producers, and so it has a big effect on the bottom line if you have to buy a lot of feed,” said Christopher Clark, an Iowa State University Extension and Outreach beef field specialist serving counties in Central and South-Central Iowa.
Hay demand rises, along with prices
Hay is the dominant food source for cattle. For the U.S. at large, hay prices have fallen over the past year. But in Iowa, they have been on the rise.
In November 2023, they reached $182 per ton in the state — a $10 jump from November 2022, and a $12 leap from Oct. 2023. The amount of hay stored on Iowa farms also has been falling since 2021, tumbling 14 percent between December 2022 and Dec. 2023.
In Northeast Iowa, cattle producers are reporting very tight but sufficient feed supplies — though, that could change before spring, said Denise Schwab, an ISU beef specialist who covers 16 counties in Northeast and East-Central Iowa. Local auctions reported lower supplies than normal, and more expensive supplies than average. Prices may increase as winter continues to cut into feed levels.
Lower feed levels are infiltrating Central and South-Central Iowa, too, Clark said. He estimated that some producers in his region saw forage loss up to 50 percent.
Many livestock producers started cutting into the winter feed reserves as early as August to supplement their dwindling pastures.
January’s back-to-back winter storms and subzero temperatures drove up nutritional needs for livestock. Cows increase their feed consumption during and after cold spurts, cutting into feed levels even more. Pregnant cows also require more fuel, especially over the winter months.
A late spring could mean more demand for feed as cows stay indoors longer.
“There's going to be quite a bit of expense this year that we don't normally have or didn't plan to have,” Swenka said. “It cuts into the bottom line.”
Other pressures abound
Connie Young, 49, and her family raise 30 cow-calf pairs on their property just south of Des Moines. The continuing drought in 2023 sank its teeth into their bottom line.
Their 90-plus acres of pasture didn’t support the herd like they usually do. Neither did their 10 acres of hay: Their yields were cut by half. The Young family has had to buy up to $4,000 worth of extra hay to keep their cattle fed during the winter.
Most of the herd is pregnant, although several cows have suffered miscarriages this season. Connie’s husband Dan said there’s a high probability those losses were due to the extreme heat that baked Iowa last summer.
“I'm not going to lie. It was a rough year,” Connie Young said. “It was the perfect storm.”
Other costs go into owning and maintaining livestock — and many of those are on the come-up, said Chad Hart, an economist and crop markets specialist for ISU Extension and Outreach.
Labor costs are rising throughout the agricultural sector. Land values in Iowa reached their highest peak on record at $11,835 per acre last year, and interest rates are still high. Price tags for veterinary services and antibiotics are increasing.
During yet another year of drought, water shortages have plagued farms around the state. Both of the wells near the Youngs’ pastures, for instance, ran dry last year. The family had to fill tanks using their home water line and haul them over to their herd, costing them extra money, time and energy.
Jason Boyer, 54, who raises 125 cows an hour south of Des Moines, reported extremely low water levels in the pond on his property. He even lost a cow to a mud patch, where retreating water levels created quicksand-like hazards. He resorted to his rural water lines for keeping his cattle hydrated.
“Water sources that you normally count on where you run cows out on... It wasn’t there,” Boyer said. “Either you were going to haul water or you had to do something different.”
Unlike feed costs, which may rise and fall depending on the year’s crop yields, there isn’t much relief on the horizon for non-feed costs, Hart said.
“(Producers) have been staring at a significant increase in cost over the last two to three years,” he said. “A lot of those higher costs are now baked into the system where they're not likely going to come back down again.”
Ripple effects on cattle market
Cattle prices had been on the come-up since mid-2020. From January to September 2023, they continued to climb from $168 per unit to $196 per unit.
When livestock producers are short on feed and water — and when cattle costs are strong, like they are now — they tend to sell more cattle to offset their increased costs, Clark said. Iowa is seeing those forces shape the trajectory of its cattle industry.
Years of drought have forced statewide cattle numbers to reduce. Heifers — or young, female cows that haven’t given birth yet — are being sold to recoup profits before they can rebuild herds. Iowa’s cattle and calves inventory dropped from around 4 million in 2018 to around 3.65 million in 2023.
“For some folks right now, one of their solutions is reducing cow numbers... Less mouths to feed is the big factor there, and the (cow) price has been relatively strong, too,” Clark said. “That's not all bad, except it's kind of a short answer, because then you have less cows to calve and to breed for future profit.”
By December 2023, cattle prices dropped down to $164 per unit and have been slowly making their way back up ever since. Herds may be rebuilt and rebound in late 2024 into 2025, Hart estimated.
“(Herd reduction) actually helped reduce the pricing pressure on beef because you're creating more beef here in the short run,” Hart said. “But when things get really tight on the beef side, we could see greater volatility in prices for both the producer and the consumer.”
Brittney J. Miller is the Energy & Environment Reporter for The Gazette and a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.
Comments: (319) 398-8370; brittney.miller@thegazette.com
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