John Nalivka

John Nalivka is the president of Sterling Marketing, Inc., which provides economic research and market advisory services to the livestock and meat industries. He became affiliated with Sterling in 1991 as executive vice president and he has owned the company since 1994. Nalivka serves clients across the red meat supply chain from producers to end-users.

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Cattlemen considering making the leap into ownership of a packing plant should consider how their risk profile dramatically changes with labor, trucking, and the cost of building and retaining markets.
We are rapidly approaching the point where we may soon be discussing the cattle cycle in terms of GHGs rather than forage supplies and producer profits.
Does the beef industry have enough packer capacity? With repeated bottlenecks and a worker shortage, a better question might be, “can the industry better use the capacity it has?”
In the haste to go after packers in order to gain producer trust, the government may be using consumer price inflation as a means for greater leverage against packers, suggests John Nalivka.
Presume for a moment that all of this optimism turns out to be wrong and market performance does not deliver as analysts forecast. How will this affect your business going forward?
The outlook for cattle prices and higher returns to cattlemen is looking positive for 2022. Low prices and significant cost inflation significantly impacted cow-calf producer decisions toward herd numbers.
Cattlemen should be suspicious of legislative and regulatory activity that interferes with markets under the guise of improving them, writes John Nalivka. Before long the entire camel is “in the tent.”
Beef cow slaughter through mid-June was 10% higher than a year ago and on a weekly basis above the levels realized during the 2011-2013 drought.
Are we headed toward significant inflation in the meat case for a longer period of time? That depends on how well demand holds.
Malheur County, Oregon, the nation’s 12th largest county in area, received a blizzard last week that resulted in an experienced hiker being stranded. Ranchers joined the sheriff’s department in a successful rescue.