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Cattle on Feed report has positive news for producers
The USDA’s latest Cattle on Feed report shows cattle placements dropped 6 percent and a livestock economist says that’s positive news for beef producers.
University of Missouri’s Scott Brown says that continues what appears to be a slowdown in production relative to what was anticipated at the start of the year.
He tells Brownfield the summer’s drought conditions likely forced cattle producers to market more lightweight calves.
Brown says that could tighten supplies heading in to 2019, which is supportive of prices. But, he says there is still a lot of downside risk for cattle producers and they need to take advantage of opportunities when they are presented. “We’ve seen positive news on the trade side,” he says. “And now, all the sudden the supply side is not growing as much as we might have thought. One could be a little more optimistic in 2019. But, certainly, we want to take advantage of futures markets that might run up at times to give us a chance to lock in some of those higher prices.”
The total number of cattle on feed as of November 1st was 3 percent above a year ago, which Brown says was also just outside the low end of pre-report expectations.
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