Terribly sad for these people. The why is important. Tyson is closing this meat packing facility because cattle herd sizes have shrunk. Why have they shrunk? Climate change.
> Tyson says it’s closing the plant to “right-size” its beef business after a historically low cattle herd in the U.S. and the company’s expected loss of $600 million on beef production next fiscal year.
> More intense droughts have led to less pasture land, forcing some ranchers to spend more on feed. One rancher in Nebraska said she sourced feed from more than 500 miles away.
> The size of the U.S.'s cattle herd has decreased since 1975, but it recently hit a historic low. Experts have largely blamed droughts.
> Climate change complicates the drought conditions, with ranchers experiencing periods of intense rainfall followed by months of no rain.
> Tyson is closing this meat packing facility because cattle herd sizes have shrunk. Why have they shrunk? Climate change.
That is not what your source states.
Here's a direct quote from the source:
> Many factors including drought and cattle prices have contributed to that decline. And now the emergence of a pesky parasite in Mexico and the prospect of widespread tariffs may further reduce supply and raise prices.
The word "climate" is not mentioned in either articles.
What the sources say is that beef prices are soaring, and ranchers have an incentive to sell off their cattle now to capture those soaring profits instead of holding onto it for breeding.
Also from the article:
> Nelson said that recently the drought has eased — allowing pasture conditions to improve — and grain prices are down thanks to the drop in export demand for corn because of the tariffs. Those factors, combined with the high cattle prices might persuade more ranchers to keep their cows and breed them to expand the size of their herds.
> ranchers have an incentive to sell off their cattle now to capture those soaring profits
This part seems like the main part of the article. They're looking at huge sales returns and relatively low feed costs that just dropped a bunch (since 2022-2023 highs) and want to rake in the money.
Pretty much that economist quote "'Do I sell that animal now and take this record high check?' 'do I keep her to realize her returns over her productive life when she’s having calves?’ 'so far the side that’s been winning is to sell her and get the check.'"
Personally, wonder whether they're actually going to bother with more herd. The low prices possibly incentivize selling high cost cows at low feed prices and raking in as much as they can before the prices go down.
And it all seems nonsensical, since cattle herds have been going down in size pretty much continuously since 2000 [1] while prices have been going up almost continuously except for 2015-2020 [2] (which is notably when herd sizes actually went UP). So when prices go down, herd sizes go up. People don't try have have more cows to make more money, they just sell the cows now.
Admittedly, the food thing generally is kind of BS anyways about the drought and otherwise. The drought was probably an issue (prices went up during 2022-2023), yet Hay is still pretty much on the same linear trend it's been on since 1970. [3] Alfalfa Hay also went up locally in 2022-2023, yet dropped back to normal trends relatively quickly after (basically almost the same linear up since 1970). [4] It matters, it just doesn't seem to matter that much.
Cattle sales prices keep rising, farmers keep selling, rather than betting on long-term elevated prices and large herd sales.
EDIT: Consideration after, think it all seems nonsense, cause if this was gambling, then usually the response would be to double down, add more money, or similar if a player was raking in money at the table. If the table turned against them, and they got poor returns, then usually they'd walk away, or find a different table. Instead, they're "winning" and getting huge sales prices, so they ... have less cows?
The "terribly sad" part doesn't seem like it really got enough. 3,000 direct losses, and 7,000 with projected secondary / tertiary losses is pretty devastating in a town of 11,000.
There's jobs in the local area. At 50 miles nebraska.gov Jobs has ~2,500 [1], Indeed has ~1,000 [2], and ZipRecruiter has ~500 [3]. However, not many that a Tyson Food cattle worker can probably easily qualify for. Most tend to be at least somewhat specialized, and quite a few that require something like nursing, healthcare, education, or otherwise.
American Foods Group LLC in Kearney, NE apparently at least has jobs that are related "Beef Production, $19.65 - $26.00, 4500 employees, process 4 million pounds of beef a day". [4] Looks like maybe the best available in the area.
Still, even if several thousand leave, that's still a pretty enormous hit on 11,000. Lose a 1/4 - 1/2 your population in a couple months or so.
> Tyson says it’s closing the plant to “right-size” its beef business after a historically low cattle herd in the U.S. and the company’s expected loss of $600 million on beef production next fiscal year.
https://apnews.com/article/beef-prices-record-high-cattle-st...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-19/more-us-b... | https://archive.today/vccTl
https://investigatemidwest.org/2024/03/13/droughts-complicat...
> More intense droughts have led to less pasture land, forcing some ranchers to spend more on feed. One rancher in Nebraska said she sourced feed from more than 500 miles away.
> The size of the U.S.'s cattle herd has decreased since 1975, but it recently hit a historic low. Experts have largely blamed droughts.
> Climate change complicates the drought conditions, with ranchers experiencing periods of intense rainfall followed by months of no rain.
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