A prolonged drought is shrinking livestock herds and driving beef prices to record highs in the US, even as consumption is growing stronger.

These days, Mary Skinner is finding it harder to get her daily meat intake.

"I have extreme need for protein and I need to eat meat that my doctor ordered," said the 69-year-old shopper outside Grand Central Market, in New York.

"I used to be able to sometimes buy ribeye steak but… I'm now eating a lot more ground beef."

The headline rate of inflation has slowed in recent months, with a 3.7 percent reading in September, year over year. But steak is still riding high, up 9.7 percent, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The average price for this American staple has risen 27 percent over the last three years.

"It's gotten to a point where I've started buying more things that can be slow-cooked, because from a price perspective, you're getting more affordable stuff," said another patron, who declined to share his name.

While inflation has been a dominant theme over the last couple years, beef is on a trajectory of its own.

Though America is often seen as home to giant herds and sprawling ranches, it is short of cattle.

"We're at the lowest beef cattle numbers since the 1960s," said Scott Brown, a specialist in farm and livestock issues at the University of Missouri.

Herds have dwindled by 10 percent over the last five years, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

"The primary driver has really been drought in many parts of cattle country. That's been a multi-year event," Brown said.

He dates the decline back to the autumn of 2020.

Pastures have decreased in size due to the lack of rainfall. Faced with less grazing land and skyrocketing hay prices, ranchers have dramatically reduced their herds.

"You look at 2022, that was the highest beef cow slaughter that we've seen since the early 1980s," said Ross Baldwin, a hedge strategist at AgMarket.Net.

The contraction since then was amplified when hundreds of cattle succumbed to brutally hot and humid weather in August.

Genetic selection has helped make up for some of the loss by improving output.

"We're more productive today. We don't need as many beef cows today as we needed 10 years ago to generate a given level of production," Scott Brown said.

But meantime, demand for red meat has increased.

In 2022, Americans ate, on average, 59.1 pounds or 26.8 kilograms of beef, slightly up from 2021.

WITH AFP