Texas rancher Jim Selman is on the verge of going out of the cattle business, a victim of one of the worst droughts since the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. The more than 300 cattle on his 3,000 acre ranch in Gonzales county have dwindled to a mere seven, as the verdant pastures turned into dried up brush and hay prices went through the roof. Scenes like this have become the hallmark of the once robust ranching community in Texas, the cradle of the cattle industry that began with the pioneers heading West to set up homesteads, and to a lesser extent in states like Oklahoma and Kansas. And fears that the United States will ‘run out of cattle' and suffer from a shortage in beef supplies -- raising prices at restaurants and supermarkets --- have lit a fire under the live cattle futures market at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Futures have surged 40 percent over the past five years, peaking at a record 126.075 cents per lb on Friday. They are up 15 percent since the start of 2011, but were taking a breather on Monday at 124.400 cents after trading to a flat close. The US Department of Agriculture will issue its biannual cattle inventory report on Friday that is expected to show further shrinkage in the size of the US herd, which is already the smallest since the 1950s. “I will not be terribly surprised if prices head even higher,” said livestock analyst Dan Vaught of Vaught Futures Insight in Altus, Arkansas.
