Wildfires Deal Blows to Nebraska Producers, Forcing Early Calf Sales

Jun 25, 2026

By Grant Winterer

Many of Nebraska’s beef producers are considering selling off their calves earlier than normal this year after wildfires torched hundreds of thousands of acres typically used for grazing.

That means tough financial decisions for beef producers for both short and long-term survivability. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Associate Professor and Extension Specialist Elliott Dennis explained that some of those economic effects may not be felt until later in the year.

“We haven’t seen a huge decrease in price,” Dennis said. “But normally it’d be typical for the fall, when we have a lot of animals coming off grass. We’d have a lot of animals coming to market at that time, which means price tends to come down at that time. “

The state’s beef herd has been steadily declining since 2019. It’s down 20% in the past year alone.

Dennis said that producers don’t make those decisions lightly, as weaning and selling calves out of state would further undermine efforts to rebuild the herd.

“When a producer makes that decision today, they’re thinking, ‘What is the potential for that thing to look like in several years?’” Dennis said.

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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