The US may have entered a period of structurally lower pork demand from other countries, according to the Illinois Farm Policy News quoting Financial Times Writer Hudson Lockett in an article earlier this month. There were years when pork prices were high and people switched to beef, chicken or fish, said Darin Friedrichs, analyst at … Read More

Managed money, a proxy for large commodity investment firms, cut their collective net long live cattle futures position for the fourth straight week during the week ended last Tuesday, Sep. 21, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s weekly Commitments of Traders report Friday. At the same time, those hedgers, known as commercial traders since … Read More

The Sep. 1 Quarterly Hogs and Pigs report from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service Friday may be interpreted bullishly by futures traders on Monday since it indicated lower supplies than pre-report estimates. The report had all hogs and pigs on Sep. 1 down 3.082 million head, or 3.93%, to 75.352 million from 78.434 million … Read More

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure” is a catchphrase going around livestock industries, and Oklahoma State University Extension Beef Cattle Breeding Specialist Mark Johnson agreed in a newsletter to Extension agents titled Cow-Calf Corner. “Regular and consistent performance analysis can help a cow-calf operation: 1) identify where the business has excelled as well as … Read More

Total red meat supplies in US freezers on Aug. 31 were up about 4% from the previous month but down about 6% from last year, according to the monthly Cold Storage report from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service Wednesday. Total frozen poultry supplies were down about 3% from the previous month and down about … Read More

New details for a potential $3.5 trillion spending and tax package were released by the House Ways & Means Committee on Monday Sep. 13, including a proposal for funding new policies advanced by Democrats. According to Krista Swanson, Gary Schnitkey and Nick Paulson of the University of Illinois Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, in … Read More

Canada’s population of cattle on feed as of Sep. 1 declined from Aug. 1 but not as much as normal, according to data from CanFax, a private market advisory group. CanFax collects the data from its members in Alberta and Saskatchewan and allows the Livestock Marketing Information Center in Denver to publish the total on … Read More