THOMAS COUNTY, Neb. - Stan Pettit bounces his converted 1972 International firetruck over a sandy track past the ruins of a homestead, its remains partly hidden by trees that once sheltered it from the prairie wind.

Pettit calls this piece of ground "the Garsky," after the family that lived here decades ago. Touring the Pettits' 11,000-acre ranch, past "the Garsky" or "the Kermit" or "the Ed," is a little like walking through a graveyard, recalling the names of the people who worked these sandy hills before.

This land didn't change; the economics of ranching did. Consolidation and globalization in the meat-producing industry have brought chronic distress to the ranchers of the Great Plains. Most are permanently cash-poor, forced to mortgage or sell off pieces of their land to survive. Thousands are being forced from the industry.

A rancher more than 40 years, Pettit has only rarely turned a profit since fuel and machinery costs spiked in the 1970s. Like many ranchers, he operates at a loss by borrowing money on the increasing value of his land or by selling off parcels.

Here in the heart of the Great Plains, American ranching is facing a crisis, one that many ranchers say is new and different from the wrenching economic cycles that always have been part of the business. Many say independent ranching, and the rural Plains communities it sustains, are in serious trouble.

Ranchers, economists and meat-industry representatives disagree vehemently over how to weigh their importance, but factors in play include:

The concentration of the meatpacking industry gives a few giant conglomerates more control over cattle prices.

Biotechnology brings cattle to slaughter at heavier weights and younger ages, meaning it takes fewer animals to produce the same amount of meat.

The globalization of meat production forces American ranchers to compete with ranchers all over the world.

From ranchers' point of view, it adds up to one thing: lower prices for the cattle they sell.

"What we are seeing is just a decline in the value of U.S. cattle, and unless changes are made that return competition to the U.S. marketplace, we are in a serious situation," said Bill Bullard, chief executive officer of R-Calf United Stockgrowers of America, a fast-growing organization that represents independent ranchers.

For many ranchers, a day of reckoning has arrived. The Great Plains are suffering what in some areas is the worst drought since the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s. For many ranchers in the Sand Hills of Nebraska, it was too dry this year to grow hay to feed their cattle over the winter.

This fall, many are facing a devil's dilemma: Do I buy hay at inflated prices I cannot afford? Or do I sell off my herd and get out, at prices that are depressed because so many others are selling their cattle?

Last year, more than 26,000 U.S. ranchers left the business - about 1,000 of them in Nebraska, or about one in 27 of the state's ranchers, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics. The USDA predicts that by the start of next year, the U.S. domestic cattle herd will shrink to its smallest size since 1959.

One result of changes in the beef industry is that the meat on U.S. grocery shelves increasingly comes from abroad, as well as from Nebraska and Texas. In 2001, after years of steadily increasing imports, the United States became a net importer of beef in terms of value, according to the Foreign Agricultural Service of the USDA.

Impoverished region

The ranching crisis is not just economic, but civic. In Thomas County, where there are about 40 times as many cattle as people, the survival of virtually every job - at the county's only bank, its only hardware store, its only grocery store - depends on ranching.

By one measure, the Sand Hills have become perhaps the poorest place in America. Thomas County is at the center of an area of Nebraska that includes five of the 10 lowest-income counties in the United States, including Loup County, which had the nation's lowest per capita income in 2000, $6,606. Per capita income doesn't tell the whole story, however, because income doesn't measure the substantial assets many ranchers hold in their land. The cost of living is also low: The median value of a house is as low as $22,000 in some parts of the Sand Hills.

Still, the region continues to lose people, as young adults move away. The average Thomas County rancher is 53 years old. The median age of the county's population, 44, is nearly a decade older than the median age in Nebraska overall.

To participate in a food industry that is consolidating into a smaller number of big players, ranchers need bigger herds, and more ground to run them on. In the Sand Hills, the average acreage of a ranch grew by as much as 35 percent in some counties in the 10 years before 1997, as the number of ranches declined by as much as 20 percent.

That means the same land supports fewer and fewer people.

Thomas County's three towns - Thedford, the county seat, population 211; Halsey, pop. 59; and Seneca, pop. 51 - lost between 13 percent and 46 percent of their population between 1990 and 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Last year, three Sand Hills counties - Thomas, Blaine and Arthur - had a greater share of their population migrate away than 99 percent of the counties in America.

Some experts say the consolidation in agriculture is a good thing for the U.S. economy. They say it will lead to less-expensive food for consumers and a leaner food industry better equipped to compete in global markets.

Just four meatpackers now control 81 percent of the cattle slaughtered in the United States, according to researchers at the University of Missouri. But a number of studies have shown that concentration in meatpacking is probably not the sole cause of declining cattle prices. Whatever the cause, few doubt that the outlook is bleak for many rural communities across the Great Plains unless they find an alternative to ranching.

At the Peaceful Plains School, a one-room public school that sits out on the prairie, the only building in sight, the current enrollment is six students.

Even with other area schools closing recently, Peaceful Plains has never enrolled more than 14 students, said Tina Connell, the teacher. Connell thinks perhaps a third of her students will be able to find a way to make a living here once they grow up.

'What should I do?'

Autumn is always a high-stress time for ranchers. It's often when you sell your cattle, when the commodities market decides what you will earn this year.

Before bidding began on the video auction of their cattle, the Pettits decided they could accept a price no lower than 93 cents per pound.

Sitting in their living room this fall, the Pettits were able to watch the cattle auction over their satellite television system. Much would be determined by the price at which the bidding on their cattle started. Stan Pettit got a sick feeling in his stomach when he saw that number - just over 80 cents a pound.

He wanted to get up and yell at the television as the bidding slowly edged higher, through the 80s to over 90 cents a pound. Shane, his youngest son, stood with the telephone to his ear, ready to shout into it to Fort Worth that the Pettits would sell. They would have only a split second to make the call.

Finally, at 92.25 cents, Shane yelled, "What should I do?"

"Let them go," his father said.

In a sale that featured 37,000 head of cattle, the Pettits' calves topped the market in their weight class. But the price they received, about $530 per calf, was more than 10 percent below the roughly $600 they earned last year.

Mike Swift is a reporter at the Hartford Courant, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.