Drovers and their apprentices drive 64 head of longhorn cattle through Ellsworth County in September. Ellsworth was one of several Kansas cow towns in the late-19th century. |
Harris Group newspapers examine the Kansas beef industry in the six-day series. |
Beef Builds Kansas
For more than a century, beef has been a vibrant, though volatile, force in the Kansas economy
 |
| Cattle stand in a feedlot near Scandia. Kansas beef represents a $6 billion-a-year industry. Jeff Cooper/Salina Journal |
Tim Unruh
Salina Journal
When baby calves hit the ground in the spring and fall, they're destined for a six-month stay with their mothers before being weaned and sent to a pasture for a short period of grazing. At about 850 pounds, they are shipped to a feedlot, where in four months their weight will balloon to more than 1,200 pounds.
That's market weight.
At processing plants, they'll be killed, their carcasses will be disassembled, and their meat will be boxed and shipped to domestic and foreign markets. Within two weeks, most of the animal's carcass will be consumed.
The march of Kansas cattle -- 7.3 million head last year -- through a life span of less than two years is the pipeline of a $6 billion economic engine that provides about 50,000 Kansas jobs.
Today, in the 100th anniversary year of Upton Sinclair's book, "The Jungle," which shocked the nation with its description of unsanitary conditions in Chicago packing plants, Harris Group newspapers launch a six-day series of stories exploring the state of the beef industry in Kansas.
We review the efforts, in this age of terrorism, to track cattle once they leave the farm and the steps taken to prevent the spread of pathogens in what has become a highly concentrated beef production system.
Bullish on beef
Since the state's earliest days, cattle-derived dollars have been a vibrant, though volatile force in the Kansas economy.
 Hoy |
|
More than a century ago, cattle from Texas were driven here to be matched with buyers, who would load them on rail cars for the journey east to packing plants.
More recently, the packing plants have come to rural Kansas, where cattle by the thousands spend their final days in feedlots eating corn grown by western Kansas farmers that rely on the vast Ogallala Aquifer for irrigation water.
The grain, feedlot and packing plant industries have bolstered other industries, such as transportation. The cattle industry has been a driver of growth, particularly in southwest Kansas, where job opportunities have drawn an influx of workers, many of them new immigrants.
The social changes inherent in that have challenged many rural communities.
The beef industry has been challenged, too. Concern about mad cow disease prompted Japan last year to boycott American beef, calling into question product safety. Further, some consumers have shunned beef because of concerns about fat and cholesterol. Nonetheless, the executive director of the Kansas Beef Council insists that beef still is king of the plate.
Consumers "have a real passion about beef," said Todd Johnson. "It's the product they celebrate with."
He notes that annual per-capita consumption has remained steady at 68 pounds in recent years.
Abilene became cow town
The state's ties with cattle began soon after the Civil War, and some credit Illinois cattle feeder Joseph McCoy as one who cemented that relationship when, in 1867, he convinced the Kansas Pacific Railroad to let him build stock pens in Abilene.
That helped make Abilene "the first big cow town in Kansas," said Jim Hoy, an English professor and director of the Center for Great Plains Studies at Emporia State University.
Texas Longhorn cattle were not allowed in eastern Kansas because the Texas fever they carried was fatal to the British breeds of shorthorn cattle common in that area.
That pushed the cattle drives to railroad towns farther west.
The profit potential was huge, Hoy said. One could buy a steer in Texas for $2 and sell it for $40 in Chicago.
The long walk from Texas took no toll on cattle because of the lush Plains grass.
"You could drive those cattle 800 miles and they'd weigh more when they got to Kansas," he said.
Even when railroads arrived in Texas in the 1870s, Hoy said, freight rates there meant it was still cheaper to hire a crew and drive cattle north.
Abilene, Ellsworth, Newton, Caldwell, Wichita and Dodge City were cowtowns established as the railroads moved west.
"We had the railroads, the grass and the right location," Hoy said. "All of those things came together and made Kansas a leading cattle market in the late 1860s through the early 1880s."
Since then, the industry has continued to grow and evolve. The cattle drives yielded to local ranching -- and barbed wire fence.
 |
| Cattle graze in a pasture in Ottawa County. Beef continues to be in high demand for Kansas. Tom Dorsey/Salina Journal |
Feedlots spring up
And in the 1950s, the shift of cattle feeding from the Corn Belt to the Great Plains led to the development of commercial feedyards, said Jim Mintert, an agricultural economics professor at Kansas State University.
Lee Reeve, owner of the Reeve Cattle Co. feedyard south of Garden City, said that change was fueled by cheap grain.
As the concentration of cattle in western Kansas grew, packing plants followed, Mintert said. They've introduced still more innovations, such as boxed beef, which is more efficiently shipped than carcasses.
Johnson, of the Kansas Beef Council, says innovation continues. Most beef in supermarket cases is leaner than it once was, he said, even though fat plays a key role in tenderness and flavor.
The industry has sought to make beef more convenient for consumers.
Some new beef products require only a microwave oven to prepare.
Johnson said the industry also has been working on food safety issues. The use of steam to sterilize impurities, such as fecal matter, from carcasses is one example.
Some beef producers have gone further, marketing grass-fed beef, or beef that is free of synthetic hormones or antibiotics.
Water a major concern
 |
| Cattle stand in a feedlot in Minneapolis.. In the 1950s, commerical feedyards sprung up when cattle shifted from feeding in teh Corn Belt to feeding in the Great Plains. |
The industry faces other concerns in Kansas. The groundwater that makes possible the grain the cattle are fed is dwindling.
"The growing awareness of the critical supply of water has made us a lot more efficient with farming practices," said Cap Proffitt, part-owner of Barton County Feeders, Ellinwood.
Another concern is that the growth of ethanol production is changing the flow of grain cattle feeders rely upon.
Despite the challenges, the industry is pleased that Kansans are "by and large beef eaters," in the words of Meridy Barnes, the namesake and co-owner of Meridy's Restaurant & Lounge, Russell.
Beef is in demand there, as it is at the Club D'Est in Pratt, where co-owner Becky Eastes recalls a failed attempt to offer an alternative to beef.
"Years ago we tried quiche. No way," she said. "They don't like that."
>• Reporter Tim Unruh can be reached at 822-1419 or by e-mail at sjtunruh@saljournal.com
