美国国家公共电台 NPR--Beef prices are down right now. But that may not last

（单词翻译）

Beef prices are down right now. But that may not last

Transcript¹

Steak prices have decreased as meatpackers processed more beef. But drought-stricken cattle ranchers are having to cut their herds³, which is likely to lead to higher beef prices in the future.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Supermarket shoppers are seeing something unusual these days, discounts in the meat department. Steak prices have actually fallen in each of the last three months. But as NPR's Scott Horsley reports, bargain beef may not last.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE⁴: My neighborhood Safeway is advertising⁵ top sirloin this week for 4.99 a pound. Steak prices have come down from a year ago, even as the cost of chicken, pork and most other groceries has gone up. Those falling beef prices are a welcome development for shoppers, but there's a painful story behind them, severe drought that's affecting about 60% of the nation's cattle. Drought-stricken ranchers are being forced to slaughter⁶ some of their livestock⁷ early, which means more steak in the supermarket and a temporary drop in prices. Brady Blackett raises Angus beef at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains in south central Utah, where, thanks in part to a changing climate, the winter snowpack has been way down. The grazing land where Blackett's animals spend the summer is bone dry.

BRADY BLACKETT: The cattle have to travel miles and miles each day in, you know, 100-degree weather to get back out to where there's adequate enough forage⁸. So it's tough. Over the last couple of summers, we've actually had to haul water to the cattle because the springs just aren't producing enough water to keep up.

HORSLEY: Ordinarily Blackett relies on runoff from the mountains to irrigate⁹ the alfalfa he feeds his cattle in the wintertime. This year, he's having to use groundwater for irrigation. And he knows that's not sustainable.

BLACKETT: It's not looking good for the future unless we're able to get some moisture and pull ourselves out of this drought.

HORSLEY: John O'Dea runs a ranch² in southwest Nebraska. He didn't even bother planting hay on some of his land this year because he knew it was too dry to grow.

JOHN O'DEA: At our ranch, we've gotten two decent rains in the last 14 months.

HORSLEY: With grain prices also high, ranchers are opting¹⁰ to send some of their cattle to slaughter early rather than bear the cost of keeping them fed all winter.

O'DEA: We've liquidated¹¹ part of our cows. And a lot of neighbors have liquidated anywhere from 20 to 60% of their cattle herds to try and get as much to go through the drought as possible.

HORSLEY: That's produced a temporary glut¹² of beef and lower prices at the supermarket. But the savings¹³ for consumers may be short-lived. In a sign of ranchers' desperation, many of the slaughtered¹⁴ animals are breeding females, cows and heifers. So Wesley Tucker, who's a field specialist at the University of Missouri Extension, warns the next generation of cattle will be smaller.

WESLEY TUCKER: Life has very few guarantees. But a cow or heifer that is slaughtered this year is guaranteed not to calf¹⁵ next year. So that means there's lower animals coming down the line and less beef production in the future.

HORSLEY: Ranchers have lived through this cycle before. A severe drought a decade ago led to a similar downsizing of herds and, ultimately, higher prices. That's an incentive¹⁶ for ranchers to try to hang on to at least some of their cattle. But Tucker worries even if beef prices rebound¹⁷, it may not be enough to offset¹⁸ the rising cost of things like diesel¹⁹ fuel and fertilizer.

TUCKER: I don't think the price of a tractor is going to go back down next year just because our weather improves.

HORSLEY: John O'Dea keeps checking the weather forecast at his Nebraska ranch. So far, there's no sign of improvement on the horizon.

O'DEA: Basically, what we're doing now is trying to figure out how we're going to manage for next season because we know this season's a bust²⁰. I would bet that our first moisture will be blizzards²¹ this winter, the way it's looking right now. It's definitely a struggle (laughter). And we're dang sure not getting rich out here.

HORSLEY: Something to think about when you put that sale-price steak in your shopping cart.

Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.