If you ask Beef Market Update host Shaun Haney what he is seeing and hearing this week at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association conference (NCBA), he will say that despite profitability concerns across the cattle industry, there’s an encouraging amount of optimism.
Also Anne Wasko, of the Gateway Livestock Exchange, is not at #CattleCon23 this week, but she’s been enjoying following along on social media, and of course through some of the content Haney is gathering here on RealAgriculture.
Wasko joins Haney this week to discuss the cow herd size, Canadian cattle carcass weight, how we sell the feeder cattle, and more, in this weeks’ episode of the Beef Market Update.
Check out the full conversation and summary, below:
SUMMARY:
- With how our beef production cycle runs, we can have a pretty good window out in front in terms of forecasting that supply.
- We’ve seen the North American cow herd basically decimated due to drought and lack of profitability, it’s becoming more clear with every report
- On the backside we continue to get this very good news about demand — whether it’s domestic beef consumption or export consumption for both of our countries
- We need to see actual moisture events this year and beyond
- We need to start turning that up sooner rather than later
- Cow calf producers want to clearly see that they could have a few years of some very good returns from a profitability perspective
- Cattle markets were quiet this week
- Cutout trend is lower
- Choice cut out is down again this week but that’s not out of the ordinary for this time of the year
- It typically kind of flips right into February before we start to turn that corner and see cattle prices move higher into that spring demand
- Canadian steer carcass weights are still very heigh. Why? We haven’t cleaned that up yet.
- Everyone is scratching their heads going, how do we sell these pens at the feedlot?
- Yes, the Canadian dollar is weak, but we also have this very weak basis. We struggled through it all through 2022
- Today we’re $16-$17 under the U.S. market
- Even with economic issues, people have not just moved to ground beef — we are doing extremely well in the premium cuts
- If you compare the poultry, pork, and beef, beef is not the winning share of the stomach right now
- CanFax released some early data a couple weeks ago that talked about 2022 being a record demand year for Canadian beef in Canada
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