US live hog imports for 2021 were projected to exceed last year by 25%, while live cattle imports through October were down 19% from the 2020 period, according to the USDA’s Situation and Outlook Report. Canada supplies nearly all imported hogs, most of them feeder pigs weighing less than 110 pounds, the report said.  However, … Read More

The number of US hogs and pigs on Dec. 1 was down from last year, although the breeding herd remained near steady, the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service said in its Quarterly Hogs and Pigs report. The decline in the total was all in the number of market hogs counted.  All weight categories showed declines, … Read More

The Consumer Price Index for meats shows a strong rise all year, and the trend keeps growing, according to the monthly report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. November CPI data showed a 6.8% increase from last year to 277.9 for All Items, making November the month with the fastest growth rate since June 1982, … Read More

This summer’s dryness in the western half of the contiguous 48 states is spreading eastward, bringing abnormally dry and exceptional drought conditions to the Southern Plains and the Southeast, according to the weekly Drought Monitor from the National Weather Service.   LA NINA CONDITIONS   Meteorologists say a La Nina event brings cooler water temperatures … Read More

Total red meat supplies in US freezers on Nov. 30 were down about 2% from October and down about 4% from last year, according to the monthly Cold Storage report from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service Wednesday. Total pounds of beef in freezers were up about 4% from October but down about 4% from … Read More

It looks like domestic and foreign beef buyers are becoming more price conscious, and the trend could continue into 2022, market analysts say. But the data isn’t a straightforward corridor.  The figures offer many doors into which the 2022 beef market might dive, and a look ahead could miss seeing an important doorknob in that … Read More

The number of cattle populating Canadian feed yards on Dec. 1 was up from a month earlier, a year earlier and the 2015-2019 average, according to data from CanFax, a private market information group. CanFax surveys its members in Alberta and Saskatchewan and shares the total on feed and monthly feedlot placement numbers with the … Read More