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The seedstock industry is starting to feel the pressure of low cattle markets.
The average price of choice beef at retail was $6.20 per pound during June.
The market is well supported at the current cash price levels even though live cattle futures continue to fall.
Live cattle prices are hitting the summer wall and hitting it hard.
The latest beef and cattle trade data shows a mixed bag of global market impacts. Total beef exports were down 5.3 percent in April compared to last year.
Most folks in agriculture prefer American-made products, though most of us wear, own or perhaps drive some imports.
Job growth has continued to drop the past few months, a sign that consumer beef demand could be in trouble.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) confirmed that the first shipment of U.S. beef recently arrived in South Africa following the reopening of the South African market earlier this year.
Foreign demand for U.S. beef was down 13.2% in 2015 and has been down in two of the first three months of 2016.
The recent price pressure is not necessarily a bad thing as it may benefit packers and feedlots alike down the road.
In a high or low cattle market environment, capturing the most pounds per calf affects a producer’s bottom line, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economist.
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More beef and lower prices should be positive for U.S. international trade.
There was little change in finished cattle prices this week which likely has feedlot managers sweating bullets.
“Too big, too fat, too inconsistent,” is how Hop Dickinson, former CEO of the American Hereford Association, described cattle in the 1990s.
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Downward slide in prices expected to ease, but still trending lower.
“On Twitter, our following is a young, urban, millennial guy making Hamburger Helper in his dorm room.”
There were 491 million pounds of beef in cold storage at the end of February.
For the second week in a row, cattle and beef prices are sharply lower.
Consumers are using their leftover gasoline money at the grocery counter, says Matt Bennett, Bennett Consulting.
A K-State agricultural economist explains some of the reasons for current market trends.
The average retail price of choice beef during February was $5.986 per pound.
The calf market continued to strengthen this week as the demand for lightweight calves intensified.
Beef is now so expensive in Argentina, which once was the third-largest exporter, that slaughtering plants are about to start importing cattle from neighboring countries for the first time in almost two decades.
When Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump showed off a pile of beautifully marbled steaks atop a butcher board at a Tuesday campaign event, he called them “Trump steaks.” That’s true in the sense that they were steaks, and they were on a Trump property.
It is all too easy for producers and even more so for consumers to underestimate the value of the market data that helps ensure efficient agricultural markets and a steady supply of affordable food.