The US cattle industry faces its worst crisis in decades as a 22-year megadrought devastates western grazing lands. The cattle herd has shrunk to its smallest size since 1951, driving up feed costs and forcing meatpacking plants to close. Despite record prices for live cattle, ranchers cannot expand herds because the underlying resources—water and pasture—have been depleted.

The industry is trapped in what experts call "double materiality": cattle operations contribute to the very climate conditions destroying them. Methane from US cattle has roughly 80 times the warming potential of CO₂ over two decades. Water withdrawals from the Colorado River and Ogallala Aquifer—mostly used to grow animal feed—have become unsustainable. The US still maintains the world's third-largest herd after Brazil and India.

Investors and policymakers now face an uncomfortable choice. They can wait for the industry to collapse under mounting physical and financial risks, or they can fund a managed transition away from cattle ranching. One Oklahoma farmer told the author he wanted to plant stone fruit but couldn't secure financing because crops take too long to generate cash flows. The financial implications are already material—stranded assets including land, machinery, and processing facilities will only grow as water scarcity intensifies.