The United States is a major producer of beef and dairy products. Cattle and calves are widely dispersed throughout the country.

The United States has the largest fed-cattle industry in the world. Fed cattle refers to animals that are raised to slaughter weight in a feedlot (an area or building where animals are kept) where they are fed concentrated feed – feed that that is high in energy and protein, such as a mixture of corn and soybean meal (the product that is left after the oil is extracted from soybeans through crushing). This is in contrast to some other major beef producing countries, such as Australia and Brazil, where beef cattle are primarily raised by grazing on forage, primarily grass. A lot of the beef production takes place in the central part of the United States – in the states running from North Dakota south through Texas. If you look at the maps for corn, sorghum, and soybeans you will see that a lot of their production takes place in these central states or states that are close by.

It takes a lot of feed to raise a beef animal to its normal slaughter weight of around 1,250 pounds (around 565 kilos) in a feedlot. A typical figure is 5.5 to 6.5 pounds of feed per pound of weight gain. So it makes sense to raise beef cattle close to feed supplies. For most types of livestock, particularly those that are primarily raised for meat, you will find that the primary determinant of where the animals are located is where sources of feed are located.

We can see this clearly when we look at swine (hogs and pigs) (hog is a generic term for all swine and a pig is a young hog). The map shows that many of these animals are concentrated in the Corn Belt area, where there are ample supplies of corn and soybeans (see those maps).

Over the last 20 years or so there has been a major expansion of swine production near to the east coast of the United States in North Carolina. Although this area is not so well endowed with feed, good transportation systems combined with a range of local economic conditions, including low labor costs and less stingent environmental regulations, have contributed to the development of large scale hog operations in this area. Potential pollution from large concentrated feeding operations has become an increasingly important issue and this is affecting the location of such operations in the United States. So this is an example of how policies and economics can interact to determine the location of agricultural production.

Dairying is a major part of US agriculture. The farm value of milk production is second only to beef among livestock industries and is equal to corn. Milk is produced in all 50 States, with the major producing States in the West and North.

Traditional dairy farming areas are in the northeast and mid-west, where a temperate climate and availability of feed stimulated the development of this type of agriculture. Midwestern states such as Wisconsin and Michigan and Northeastern States such as New York and Pennsylvania have traditionally had important dairy industries. But, as in the case of swine, the development of large scale dairy farms has taken place in other areas, particularly in western states such as California and Idaho, largely for environmental reasons. The average dairy farm in the United States has around 115 cows but the number of farms with more than 500 animals has been increasing rapidly. In 2009, 30 percent of the total number of milk cows in the United States were in in herds of 2,000 animals or more; 56 percent were in operations with more than 500 animals and these farms accounted for almost 60 percent of the milk produced. Large dairy farms generate a lot of manure and it is preferable to locate these away from heavily populated areas.

Overview of the United States Dairy Industry

So as is the case for swine, the location of milk production in the United States is influenced by climate and feed availability, but also by other factors, such as environmental regulations and economic factors that favor the development of large scale operations. We shall look at some of the economic forces that favor large farms in lesson 05.

Corn silage – a fermented, high-moisture fodder – is often fed to dairy cattle as well as to beef cattle. As we can see from the map a lot of the corn silage produced in the United States is in dairy states.