Cattle Comeback on the Central Coast

SANTA MARIA, Calif. – Cattle ranching on the Central Coast is making a slow comeback thanks in large part to help from Mother Nature.

After years of drought, the steady rains earlier this year have grown an abundance of pasture grasses for cattle to feed on.

"Yeah, it's a banner year, you can't complain about this", said San Luis Obispo County cattle rancher Steve Arnold who is the current sitting president of the California Cattlemen's Association, "damage or no damage we needed it."

"It's good now, we got rain and everything is pretty good", Arnold added, "but the numbers are way depleted, so the price is up obviously with the supply and demand situation, it will take a lot of time to build those numbers back."

Cattle ranching on the Central Coast goes back generations for many local families.

"It's been in the Arnold family for 103 years", Steve Arnold said.

"My great, great grandfather came here in the 1860's", said Santa Maria Valley cattle rancher and farmer Peter Adam.

Some cattle ranchers on the Central Coast sold their stock and got out of the business during the recent drought.

But demand for U.S.-grown beef continues to exceed supply leading to higher retail meat prices in the grocery stores.

"Ironically now there's an international taste for U.S. beef", Steve Arnold said, "so about 25 percent of our value is based on trade, foreign trade."

As for the near future, cattle ranching is expected to remain an important part of Central Coast agriculture even though it's a far smaller percentage of total annual production behind berries, wine grapes and vegetables.

"There's a market for calves, we can make them", rancher Peter Adam added, "I mean until it all gets developed, because that's where it's going eventually, in 200 years there will be houses all over these hills and there will not be any more cattle here."