Thursday’s monthly USDA Cold Storage report was hard to interpret.  Stocks of meat and poultry were down from a month earlier but up from the pandemic-laden 2021. Consumers were buying meat last month in spite of inflation, but it’s hard to say they were cutting back from last year. Total red meat supplies in freezers … Read More

Is inflation starting to eat into beef retail and wholesale markets beyond anecdotal observations?  A graph of choice boxed-beef cutout values might say so. The graph also could show positively that federal government stimulus checks last year created, or allowed, unusual buying interest at the retail level.  It’s hard to say that more money made … Read More

Consumer beef buying interest is holding strong in the face of inflation, held up by rising prices for competing proteins, said Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist, said in a letter to Extension agents called Cow-Calf Corner. In the first quarter of 2022, retail and wholesale beef prices were sharply higher compared … Read More

Managed money, a proxy for large commodity investment funds, bought live cattle futures again during the week ended last Tuesday, June 14, as hedgers sold live cattle futures, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Friday in its weekly Commitments of Traders report.   MANAGED MONEY GETS LONGER CATTLE   As of last Tuesday, managed money … Read More

The most recent slaughter data have year over year beef cow slaughter increasing as the reality of reduced pasture and hay production becomes clear, said Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension livestock marketing specialist, in a letter to Extension agents called Cow-Calf Corner. Through May, beef cow slaughter was 15% more than last year, Peel … Read More

The total 2022 US red meat and poultry production forecast from the USDA’s World Agricultural Outlook Board was raised from last month as higher beef and pork production estimates more than offset a lower poultry production outlook. The latest estimates came in this month’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report.  Production forecasts for 2023 … Read More

As Plains states’ temperatures go from a mild, wet spring to the dead of summer within a week, there are growing reports of cattle stress and even deaths. Reports of death losses can be hard to track down since no one wants to own up to the losses, figuring such an admission, no matter how … Read More