Profit margins for cattle feeders and packers continue pacing in opposite directions as shrinking supplies of market-ready cattle drive negotiated cash prices higher.
Wholesale beef prices continue to support packer margins even as negotiated cash cattle trade well-above the five-year average. Pork producers enjoy a market rally that has lifted margins out of the red.
After pleading guilty in January to mail fraud in connection with misrepresenting and underreporting cattle he grazed on Bureau of Land Management range, a Montana man receives probation and ordered to pay restitution.
Negotiated cattle traded lower for the second consecutive week and the Cattle on Feed report surprised with a placement total significantly higher than expected.
Many similarities exist between today’s cattle market and that of a decade ago. But this year’s market is not, as Yogi Berra once said, “déjà vu all over again.”
The Food and Drug Administration would have authority to inspect large feedlots linked to salmonella outbreaks and other foodborne illnesses under the Expanded Food Safety Investigation Act.
