Cattlemen are tired.
I know because I am one.
I know what it means to make a breeding decision today and wait years to see whether it pays off. I know what it is like to watch the sky for rain, walk the herd for sickness, repair a fence after dark and check a cow in labor while most of the world is asleep.
Putting years of work, money and hope into an animal without knowing what the market will pay at sale time is a reminder that nothing in this business is guaranteed.
Most Americans encounter beef under bright lights in a grocery store or on a restaurant menu. They see a package, a price and perhaps a label describing the cut.
They do not see everything that came before it: the cow-calf producer who selected the genetics and watched over the cow through breeding and pregnancy; months spent protecting calves from weather, disease and predators; or the truck driver, livestock market, veterinarian, feed supplier and processor.
Long before there is a steak, there is a chain of people accepting risk, and at the beginning stands the cow-calf producer.
That producer carries enormous responsibility while controlling little of what happens afterward. We do not set the market, control the weather or dictate the cost of land, fuel, feed, equipment or veterinary care. The cattle must be fed whether the market is high or low. A cow in labor does not care that it is two in the morning, Christmas Day or your child’s birthday. When a calf is sick, you do everything you can to save it — even when the cost of treatment may exceed what you will ever recover.
We face those realities and keep going.
That is the part of cattle production that most people never experience. It is more than a profession. It is a culture built around responsibility.
That creates a unique kind of grit.
Yet our culture has an odd understanding of value. Someone will spend eight dollars on a latte without much thought and then complain about the price of a steak that may have taken nearly three years — from the breeding decision to the finished product — to reach the plate.
That contradiction says more about our culture than the cattle market.
We have become disconnected from what it takes to produce what we consume. We expect food to remain plentiful, affordable and immediately available, but rarely consider the people, land, time and risk required to produce it.
Beef does not appear because government announces that prices should fall. A cattle herd cannot expand overnight. A cow normally produces one calf a year, and that calf needs time to grow. Decisions made today may not increase the beef supply for years.
Agriculture operates according to biology — not political calendars.
That is why recent announcements from Washington and Richmond have made so many cattle producers uneasy. Beef has again become a political talking point. Elected officials argue over prices, imports, processing and markets while the people who raise the cattle risk becoming an afterthought.
Cattlemen do not want to be political pawns.
Input costs rise. Regulations accumulate. Processing capacity remains a challenge. Development pressures drive land prices beyond what cattle can support. The land itself — our most precious and irreplaceable resource — becomes more valuable for almost anything other than producing food.
When a cattle family sells its herd or develops its farm, we should not be too quick to judge.
Many are doing what any good parent would: trying to provide security for their children.
But every time that happens, Virginia loses something that may never return. We lose working farmland. We lose open space. We lose local food production. We lose generations of knowledge. Most importantly, we lose another family connected to the land.
That is why I carried the legislation creating Virginia Verified Meat and its first certification: Virginia Verified Beef.
The General Assembly passed that legislation in 2024. It established a clear and meaningful standard: for beef to carry the Virginia Verified label, it must be bred, born, raised and processed here in the commonwealth.
Those four words matter.
Bred here. Born here. Raised here. Processed here.
The label lets consumers know the beef they are purchasing is genuinely connected to Virginia. It also recognizes every part of the Virginia supply chain — from the cow-calf producer to the processor.
Virginia Verified Beef reconnects consumers with the people who produced their food, emphasizing that those people matter.
The program is also a foundation upon which Virginia can build.
A voluntary, producer-led cooperative could bring together quality cow-calf producers, backgrounders, feeders and processors to establish consistent standards, create a dependable supply of high-quality Virginia Verified Beef and build a brand Virginia consumers recognize and trust. But experienced cattlemen, feeders and processors must provide the leadership.
Our livelihood depends on healthy soil, clean water and productive land. Virginia cattle producers have willingly participated in conservation programs and invested their own labor and resources in responsible stewardship.
The story of the cattleman is not simply about beef. It is about stewardship, independence, patience and sacrifice; accepting responsibility when no one is watching; and standing back up after drought, disease, loss and disappointment.
It is the grit that helped settle the West, build our communities and feed a growing nation.
Virginia can honor that heritage by connecting producers with modern consumers, expanding processing while building a trusted Virginia brand, and protecting working farmland so another generation can remain on it.
And we can begin by remembering the person at the beginning.
Before the grocery store, before the restaurant and before the steak, there is a cattleman.
We are asking for a fair chance to keep working, keep producing, protect the land entrusted to us and leave something worthwhile to our children. We have earned that chance.
Michael Webert is a Republican member of the House of Delegates from Fauquier County and a cattle farmer.
