Florida Made Foods: Cattle Ranches and The State’s Beef Industry

Florida ranching lasts longer than most residents imagine. Beef production sits at the center of the state’s agricultural heritage for more than 400 years, anchored in a working landscape that often remains invisible to the theme-park corridor.

Photo courtesy Double C Bar Ranch.

Today, Florida supports more than 886,000 head of cattle and about 15,000 beef producers. The state ranks 13th nationwide in overall cattle numbers. The top cattle counties include Okeechobee, Highlands and Osceola, a list that underscores how close cattle country sits to Central Florida’s population growth. Cash receipts from cattle and calf sales total more than $546 million, a reminder that beef is not a relic of “Old Florida.” It is a current economic engine.

Florida functions predominantly as a cow-calf state. Calves are weaned at about 6 to 10 months, weighing roughly 300 to 600 pounds, then shipped to stocker operations or feedlots. Florida ships about 450,000 calves each year. Behind that system sits a layer of breeding and genetics that rarely makes headlines but shapes national markets. Florida seedstock producers supply breeding animals and genetic “building blocks” for herds well beyond state borders, selecting traits suited to heat, humidity and subtropical conditions.

By the 1600s, Florida counts dozens of ranches and tens of thousands of head of cattle. The story continues into the modern era with scale that surprises even longtime Floridians.

A purebred Brahmans cow from Chapman’s Double C Bar Ranch.

The land footprint is even more striking. Nearly half of all Florida agricultural land is involved in cattle production. In practice, that means ranchland often becomes a buffer against sprawl, and in many cases it becomes habitat. Wildlife and native plant systems persist on ranch lands, and in a state where development pressure rarely eases, the working landscape doubles as conservation.

Located in Central Florida, Double C Bar Ranch reflects both the long arc of Florida cattle history and its modern reinvention. Cattle ranching at Double C Bar dates back to the 1930s, when the family’s first generation assembled large tracts of land during the Great Depression, a time when land values were low and opportunity favored those willing to work difficult ground.

“Cattle ranching has been in our family since the 1930s,” says Clifton Chapman. “The first generation landowners and cattle ranchers were able to put together large tracts of land during the Great Depression when land values were next to nothing. This area was completely covered in pine woods and Florida oak scrub, and raising cattle was very difficult and required a lot of land to do so.”

Over decades, each generation improved the land—clearing, planting and managing grasses better suited to Florida’s subtropical climate. What once required vast acreage to sustain cattle gradually became more efficient through improved forage management.

“Over the years each generation has been able to improve the land by planting grasses that are more efficient in raising cattle per acre,” Chapman says. “Currently there are five generations that have worked our ranch, and what Double C Bar Ranch operates on now is just a small portion of what the ranch rangeland was originally.”

Several generations of Chapman ranchers help herd and brand the cattle as the younger generations learn about tradition and technology.

Florida’s role as a cow-calf state remains central to Double C Bar’s operation. The region’s climate plays a decisive role in that identity.

“Florida is known historically as a cow-calf state, and in our case Central Florida,” Chapman says. “Because of our subtropical climate, we are able to grow grass more months out of the year than any other state. While our grass quality may not compare to western grasses, the volume we can grow makes up for it.”

That abundance allows for different stocking realities than western ranches.

“Due to our ability to grow an abundance of grass per acre, our stocking rates for mama cows are much less than western land ranches,” Chapman explains.

The cattle industry, however, no longer focuses solely on quantity. Modern consumers expect consistency, tenderness and quality, and meeting those expectations requires more precision than previous generations demanded.

“We are no longer a country concerned with just having meat on the table,” Chapman says. “We want high-quality, tender beef that is enjoyable. That requires more inputs than 100 years ago. By improving genetics, forages and feed efficiencies, the industry is able to accomplish this with less acreage than ever before.”

Technology and genetics now allow Florida ranchers to compete nationally while operating within tighter land constraints. That matters in Central Florida, where development pressure is constant.

“The geography of our area has drastically changed due to tourism and development,” Chapman says. “That doesn’t mean agriculture is going away completely. It creates challenges, but it also brings opportunity.”

One of those opportunities lies in proximity to consumers. Double C Bar Ranch has spent more than a decade expanding beyond a traditional cow-calf model to keep more of the beef supply chain local.

“We’ve worked to diversify from strictly a cow-calf operation to also supplying finished beef to our Central Florida area,” Chapman says. “We’ve been developing this program since 2010, retaining our calves here on the ranch, backgrounding them and finishing them here.”

Once finished, the cattle are transported to a USDA-inspected processing facility in Ocala, then distributed throughout Florida. Double C Bar also sells directly to consumers, shortening the distance between ranch and table.

“We typically run our u-pick between March and May,” Chapman says. “During u-pick days, we offer activities for families and cook Double C Bar Ranch beef over oak fire using oak wood from here on the ranch.”

That blend of agriculture, access and education reflects a broader shift in how Florida ranches remain viable amid rising land values.

“The biggest challenge moving forward is development pressure,” Chapman says. “It’s very hard to compete with the value of developable land. But the next generation has an opportunity not only to continue commercially, but to expand the direct-to-consumer market.”

Courtesy Double C Bar Ranch

At its core, Chapman says, ranching remains a calling rooted in stewardship.

“We try to teach the next generation that living and working on this ranch is a blessing,” he says. “We are called to be stewards of the land and animals. The work can be hard, but if you take care of the land, it will take care of you.”

Florida’s cattle industry is one of the state’s oldest and most enduring agricultural traditions, stretching back more than 400 years and continuing to shape Central Florida’s landscape today. With nearly 900,000 head of cattle and thousands of producers statewide, Florida remains a major cow-calf state, raising calves that supply beef markets across the country while increasingly serving local consumers.

At Double C Bar Ranch in Central Florida, that history meets modern adaptation. Cattle ranching at the family-run operation dates to the 1930s, when earlier generations assembled large tracts of land during the Great Depression and worked challenging pine woods and scrub into productive pasture. Over time, improved forage management, genetics and grazing practices allowed the ranch to operate more efficiently on less land while maintaining herd quality.

Florida’s subtropical climate plays a key role, allowing ranchers to grow grass more months of the year than anywhere else in the country. Though Florida grasses differ from western forage, their abundance supports productive stocking rates and large-scale cow-calf operations. Advances in technology and genetics now enable ranchers to meet modern consumer expectations for high-quality, tender beef while using fewer resources than in the past.

As development pressure reshapes Central Florida, Double C Bar Ranch has diversified to remain viable, expanding beyond a traditional cow-calf model. Since 2010, the ranch has retained, backgrounded and finished its own cattle locally, processing beef through a USDA facility in Ocala and selling directly to consumers across the state. The ranch also operates a seasonal blueberry u-pick, welcoming families onto the land.

For Florida cattle producers, raising beef is not only about food; it is about preserving working landscapes, managing land responsibly and carrying agricultural knowledge forward to future generations.

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