US consumers are responding to rising food prices with a variety of cost-reduction behaviors like buying cheaper brands, reducing the amount of non-food items purchased and cutting down on eating out, a Gardner Food and Agricultural Policy survey found. Summarized by the Illinois Farmdocdaily, the study, done by Maria Kalaitzandonakes and Jonathan Coppess, University of … Read More

2020 and 2021 were good times for people looking to find a job in Nebraska, but labor shortages now constrain business activity, and inflation is an ongoing challenge, said Nate Kauffman and John McCoy, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in a publication. Nebraska’s labor shortages reached all-time highs in 2022, with … Read More

Large commodity investment firms, known as managed money, reduced their collective net long live cattle position during the week ended Tuesday as cattle owners, called commercial traders, cut their total net short position. All that was from Friday’s weekly Commitments of Traders report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.   FUNDS SELL CATTLE   The … Read More

Two years of drought have depleted US hay stocks severely, presenting challenges for cattle producers, said Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University agricultural economist, in a letter to Extension agents called Cow-Calf Corner. The Dec. 1 hay stocks report from the USDA showed total stocks of 71.9 million short tons, 16.4% below the previous 10-year average … Read More

The Federal Reserve released its latest Beige Book Wednesday, saying overall US economic activity was relatively unchanged since the previous report. The Beige Book is a monthly synopsis of the US’s economic activity as summarized from reports from the Federal Reserve Bank directors.   OVERAL ECONOMIC ACTIVITY   Five districts reported slight or modest increases … Read More

The semi-annual Cattle (inventory) report is set for release on Jan. 31, and many in the cattle and beef industries expect to see numbers reflecting a large herd-reduction effort last year. The reductions were the result of a combination of strong lean beef demand, higher cull cow prices and forage issues stemming from the drought, … Read More

1-17-22 – Large commodity index funds, called managed money, took on a collectively longer net long live cattle futures position in the week ended last Tuesday, Jan. 10.  During the same week, cattle owners, or commercial traders, took on a larger net short position. The data came from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly Commitments … Read More