The following is an edited transcript of the report given by Jesus Holguin Cazares, president of the Kansas Cattlemen’s Association (KCA), to the May 22, 2026 weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition. The youngest KCA president ever, at age 30, Holguin has a cattle background in the United States and Mexico, and he has had wide experience in construction of wind generators, including in Europe. He is a strong advocate for nuclear power. The video is available here.

I apologize. I’m driving through some canyons in Texas right now…. But I wanted to just relay to you—I was talking to some of my members yesterday—how the war with Iran is going in terms of impact on agriculture.

The cost of chemicals is going up substantially in our area, especially farming. You know, we’re not just ranchers here, we also farm. The biggest thing is that if you can’t buy chemicals in bulk (semi-truck loads), and you have to buy just from the store (small volume units), just to get you through 11 sections worth [7,040 acres], it’s not cost effective. You’re spending a lot of money to try and get a good grain crop out this year, and we’re starting to see it.

Another part to it is, with all the fires that have been happening, especially in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Nebraska, it’s really affecting a lot of cattle production. And then, if you guys haven’t kept up with it, Cargill just shut out workers at its Fort Morgan plant, about 1,200 employees in their beef-packaging operation.

And so, we kind of have this thing where a lot of the agriculture is now being consolidated by big capital investors, into big corporate farms, with the Big Four [Cargill, JBS, Tyson Foods, National Beef/Marfrig] taking on a big role in beef.

It’s really hard for producers like myself—farmers, ranchers—to really be in a competitive market anymore, just due to the fact that these guys can drive these prices up, or they can keep up with the prices as they are inflated. And us smaller producers, we can’t produce.

In the last year-and-a-half, I’ve been trying to buy more land so I can grow my operation. And I’ve been having to compete with a lot of investment groups. Investment groups are coming in just to hold land, just to have some portfolio in it.

I’ve been outbid every single time. I can afford—barely afford—$2,000 an acre, where these guys are bidding $3,500 an acre. So, it’s been really difficult to maintain the momentum to want to grow a farm.

A lot of the ranchers that are currently on a ranch, they’re leaving the ranching business, the farming business, and all that, because they’re getting really good offers from these large corporations. So, the neighbor to the south, or someone like myself, we can’t compete with that. And now, due to the rising cost of cattle, even growing the herds is starting to get a little bit pricey.

In two years, we almost doubled the price of a heifer, [and of] a cow-calf pair. So now, with what’s going on in the world, all those prices just translate back into hitting our pockets. And we’re not getting far ahead.

Everyone else is seeming to make money, but we’re still the smaller ranchers, the smaller communities, and we’re still losing it. And it’s kind of a hard deal for us to want to keep in this life without getting any movement to get the world in a better spot to drive down these prices.

Down here in Kansas we have a majority of our land that is still owned by farms. But in the last five, last 10 years, a lot of them have been starting to be picked up by small corporations.

I had a farmer tell me something interesting, too. He was severely affected by the wildfires this past weekend. He ended up losing about 200 pair [cow-calf]. And out of nowhere on Tuesday, he got an offer from a large investment group. He is not sure, he doesn’t even know how they heard that his place had been hit, but someone came and offered him money for his burnt land. Trying to swoop in and take advantage of someone while they’re down.

That’s the kind of crisis we’re facing in this area.