Climate Change Impacts on the U.S. Livestock Sector and Possible Adaptations

Figures and Table

Herein we first present the threshold levels we found that gave the best model fit for low and high heat stress using THI level as a measure for heat stress, then we will discuss the climate change impacts estimation results by livestock breed and the technology impacts. In general the results indicate THI is related to the livestock productivity measures in the form of an inverted U-shaped impact, meaning that the productivity measures initially increase as THI increases and this persists until a certain threshold point then above that they decline.

• Heat stress thresholds

Illustrations of heat stress thresholds for cattle, hogs, and chickens are shown in Figures 1-3, respectively. In general, cattle productivity gets more impacts from changes in THI when compared to hogs and chickens, and suffers a larger decrease in extreme heat conditions.

For cattle, the heat stress thresholds for production (milk yields and slaughter weights) are higher than those for the reproductive performance measures (birth rates and survival rates). The low heat stress occurs at a THI level of 55 for milk yield and 57 for cattle slaughter weights, while for calf birth rates it is 52 and for calf survival it is 53. This indicates that as heat stress level increases, the calves and pregnant animals will be more sensitive to the change, and the growing animals will experience heat stress until it reaches a more elevated level. Cattle yield will decrease at a small pace until the THI rises to a higher level, exhibiting a sharp decrease in cattle slaughter weight and milk yield at THI = 74 and THI = 72, respectively.

When considering hogs and chickens we find they exhibit both low heat stress and high heat stress at a lower level compared to cattle. Piglet survival rate and egg laying rate start to decrease at THI thresholds of 55 and 50, and sharply decrease under high levels of heat stress at 65. In contrast, a sharp decrease for calf birth and calf survival rate will occur at THI = 70. In other words, hogs and chickens have shorter intervals of tolerance to low heat stress and exhibit high heat stress at lower THI levels compared to cattle.

Although we have to admit that there is a set of models that perform almost equally well and the differences among them are quite small.

• Projected livestock productivity over time

We make the projections under RCP 4.5 and ensembled 6 GCMs. We present a weighted average on the national level based on the production. The climate change impacts on milk yield and cattle slaughter weight may seem. However, this is misleading because climate change is imposing opposite impacts on northern and southern regions, and on the national average the impacts cancel out. For cattle reproduction measures, calf birth rate and calf survival rate, the former shows a decreasing trend under “with technology” cases and climate change makes things worse, and the latter keeps increasing with the support of improving technology while climate change is also playing a negative role.

For hogs and chickens, hog slaughter weight shows an upward trend with the inclusion of technology progress but piglet survival rate has a downward trend with technologies. Broilers slaughter weight and egg lay rate are increasing with the help of technology . Climate change imposes negative impacts on all these four yield measures.

Table 1, summarizes our findings for the projected productivity changes in 2100 for the national level and in some leading production states. The presented numbers are the ensemble average across the 12 climate change scenarios. Our results indicate that climate change will decrease all the eight livestock productivity measures although less than the projected technical change so in general we still expect greater productivity but less than would have occurred in the absence of climate change.

Regional contrasts are most pronounced for cattle. Milk yields decline by as much as 11% in Florida and Texas across scenarios, while most northern states show increases, and slaughter weight and calf survival follow the same pattern. Among the seven leading cattle-producing states, South Dakota is the only one anticipating an overall increase, yet calf birth rates are projected to fall even in northern regions. Aggregated across 12 climate scenarios to the end of the century, the national average decline is 2.15%, with some states seeing losses as large as 13.72%, indicating that localized impacts can be substantially more severe than the national mean.

Hog and poultry productivity also weakens, though generally less than cattle. In the five largest hog states, slaughter weights decrease under all scenarios, yielding national average declines between 0.5% and 3.26%. Piglet survival drops by roughly 0.58% to 2.35%, which lowers today’s survival rate of about 92% to below 90% by 2100. For chickens, impacts are more modest but broad-based: broiler slaughter weight declines by less than 1% at the national level, and the layer rate of lay decreases by about 1.18% on average, with some states experiencing reductions up to 3.28% under the HadGEM2-ES RCP8.5 scenario. 

• Integrated impact of climate change on the US livestock sector.

We compare no-livestock vs. with-livestock climate impacts across RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5 and report decadal outcomes for social welfare, prices/quantities, and spatial production shifts. Ignoring livestock damages overstates gains from climate change; under RCP 8.5, aggregate welfare in the no-livestock case climbs from roughly $2.8B in 2030 to $29.2B by 2090 (2019$). Once livestock impacts are included, the 2090 total is $3.9B lower, driven primarily by domestic consumers’ lower surplus (~$3.0B) and a smaller producer loss (~$1.0B). Domestic producers gain modestly through mid-century under both RCPs when livestock is included, but by 2090 in RCP 8.5 the producer advantage reverses, which indicates tightening meat markets and diminished producer gains as heat-stress damages accumulate. Overall, the welfare gap between no-livestock and with-livestock scenarios demonstrates that livestock damages meaningfully erode the apparent benefits from crop-side productivity and market rebalancing.

Regarding the price–quantity patterns, Fisher indices show a broad decline in farm-level price indices and an increase in quantity indices over time, larger in RCP 8.5 than 4.5. Adding livestock damages barely moves crop indices but raises meat prices and reduces meat quantities relative to the no-livestock case by 2090 (meat prices higher by a few percentage points; quantities lower by a couple of points), consistent with lower livestock performance. Within commodities, price declines are heterogeneous: butter exhibits the deepest projected price drop (~17% by 2090, RCP 8.5), while egg prices fall only ~0.2%. On the crop side, cotton quantity can surge (up to ~81%) with large price drops (up to ~52%) under RCP 8.5; soybeans show prices down (~17%) with quantities up (~41%); corn edges above baseline by 2070 before easing below by 2090. These movements reflect supply expansions in climate-favored regions and cross-commodity substitutions.

Production centers shift modestly over the century in directions consistent with resource and climate signals: cattle west, hogs north, broilers northeast, eggs southwest. Milk production moves farthest and is scenario-sensitive: about 206 km west under RCP 8.5 vs. ~15 km under RCP 4.5 by 2090, while other livestock show smaller, similar shifts across scenarios.

In summary, FASOM’s integrated markets show that climate change expands total agricultural output and depresses broad price indices, but livestock-specific damages tighten meat markets and erode consumer gains, cutting into total welfare by late century, especially under RCP 8.5. Spatially, production gradually relocates toward climates and feed bases that remain competitive.