Do you know how does the US ranks when it comes to cattle producing and which are the 10 largest cattle producing states in the US? Is your state one of them? Keep reading and very soon you will find out this and some more interesting facts about the cattle producing in general. Let’s start with the world – the US is the 5th largest country in the world by cattle inventory, with 87,750,000 cattle head it carries 8, 77% cattle head of the world. The world cattle inventory is estimated at 1,000,585,000 head. More cattle, than the US, have India, Brazil, China and European Union, with India having the most. With 301,100,000 cattle head, India carries 30.09% of the world’s inventory. What is even more interesting is that even though the US is in the 5th place by the number of cattle head, it is in the 1st place by beef production in the world, while India is in the 5th. Although the beef production in the US in 2014 was the lowest in the last 20 years, the US still carries 19.08% of the beef production in the world, and together with Brazil and European Union carries almost half of the world’s production. Are you a fan of beef? Is that because your state is one of the 10 largest cattle producing states in the US?
Before we proceed with the list of states with the largest cattle production and reveal if your state is one of them, let’s see how the US stands when it comes to consumption of cattle products, such as beef. It is estimated for 2014 that more than 24,6 billion pounds of beef was consumed in the US. The beef consumption in the US is slowly dropping from year to year, but the US is still the largest consumer of beef in the world, right in front of the Brazil and European Union, and it is also among the countries who consume the most meat in the world. To find out on which position it is exactly, check out our list of the 10 countries that eat the most meat.
The largest parts of the US agriculture are the meat and the poultry industries. But, we shouldn’t forget that there are many cattle products other than meat, and that’s why the cattle industry is so important. So-called “by-products” are divided into three categories: medicinal, edible and inedible. People often forget about the inedible and medicinal products when they think of the cattle producing industry, and count only meat and milk products.
Most of the stated information we’ve collected from National Cattleman’s Beef Association and Beef2Live, and from there we have also found which states in the US are the largest cattle producers. So, without further ado we present you with list of largest cattle producing states in the US (2014):
10. Colorado
Number of estimated cattle head: 2,480,000
9. Wisconsin
Number of estimated cattle head: 3,350,000
8. South Dakota
Number of estimated cattle head: 3,650,000
7. Iowa
Number of estimated cattle head: 3,700,000
6. Missouri
Number of estimated cattle head: 3,800,000
5. Oklahoma
Number of estimated cattle head: 4,300,000
4. California
Number of estimated cattle head: 5,250,000
3. Kansas
Number of estimated cattle head: 5,800,000
2. Nebraska
Number of estimated cattle head: 6,150,000
And the largest cattle producing state in the US is Texas!
Number of estimated cattle head: 10,900,000
We hope that you have learnt something new from this list of largest cattle producing states in the US.
