With Covid-19 closing some beef packing plants and others forced to slow chain speeds to accommodate fewer employees on the job, market analysts expect to see fewer feedlot placements and lower feeder cattle prices. Fed cattle are beginning to back up in the feedlots, and the losses taken by unhedged cattle feeders could make cattle … Read More

The Covid-19 appears to be dealing the Oklahoma economy a punch to the gut after it slowed through 2019 and by February this year may not have been growing at all, but there is hope, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. Since all the closures started the Saudi-Russia oil … Read More

The next few weeks could bring an unparalleled challenge for livestock producers, processors and consumers, said Oklahoma State University Agricultural Economist Derrell Peel in a letter to Extension agents called Cow/Calf Corner. The Covid-19 virus has packer after packer announcing plant closures, slowdowns or chicken depopulation efforts.  Production of beef, pork and poultry are threatened … Read More

The USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service’s estimate of total US red meat and poultry production for 2020 was reduced Thursday from last month as sectors at all levels were adjusted to Covid-19 and economic uncertainty, the USDA said in its monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report. Beef, pork and poultry export forecasts in the … Read More

As the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association calls on President Trump to investigate cattle and beef price relationships, the Sterling Beef Profit Tracker shows the widening rift between packer and feeder returns. Various news reports say the NCBA and Nebraska Senator Deb Fisher asked the president to investigate possible irregularities in the cattle markets over the … Read More

The Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer recorded its largest one-month drop in farmer sentiment during March, Jim Mintert, Purdue University Agricultural Economist said in a release Tuesday. The barometer dipped 47 points to a reading of 121, as concerns over the effect of the Covid-19 global pandemic on the agricultural economy weighed on farmers’ … Read More

Kansas feedlots sold fewer cattle to beef packing plants in February than in January, but the rate of decline was less steep than either last year or the 2014-2018 average. The information came from a monthly survey of select Kansas feedlots by the Kansas State University Extension Service.  The data then was extrapolated to give … Read More