Total US stocks of frozen red meat and poultry on Nov. 30 were down from a month earlier, according to the monthly Cold Storage report from the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service Monday. Total frozen red meat supplies were down 2% from Oct. 31 but up 2% from last year, the report said.  Total frozen … Read More

Seasonally large slaughter hog supplies weighing on hog prices, along with robust pork demand pushing up product prices, yielded the widest processor spreads of the year in November, according to the monthly Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook from the Economic Research Service. November gross processor spreads averaged about $68 per hog, almost 79% more than … Read More

The USDA’s Economic Research Service said this week that packers had pushed slaughter levels higher in the fourth quarter, raising the quarter’s beef production forecast by 100 million pounds from November to nearly 7.0 billion pounds. The forecast came in the monthly Livestock, Dairy, and Poultry Outlook and went on to predict annual 2019 beef … Read More

Sharply higher fed cattle weights have increased beef production, but another wintery blast could temper this, said Oklahoma State University Extension Economist Derrell Peel, in a letter to Extension agents called Cow/Calf Corner. After spending much of the year below year-ago levels on a weekly basis, carcass weights moved sharply higher in October and November, … Read More

The difference between wholesale choice and select beef prices likely will continue to narrow until the last week of February, if normal trends are followed. The difference, called the choice/select spread, closed up from an unusually wide range through the summer and fall and now is near last year and the previous five-year average. It’s … Read More

Although Oklahoma’s economy continued to expand through the first half of 2019, several growth indicators slowed, said the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank in a study. Job growth has stalled, unemployment claims have risen and tax receipts have declined, suggesting little, if any, overall growth, the bank said.  Energy activity in particular declined significantly this … Read More

Initially spurred to higher prices by news that the US and China had agreed to a Phase One trade pact, Friday’s commodity and equities markets lost some of their bullish enthusiasm by their closes. The deal requires some reforms by China in the area of intellectual property, technology transfer, agriculture, financial services and currency and … Read More