The dairy industry has always provided a relatively small but consistent portion of the beef industry in the integrated North American market. As breeding technology has advanced, dairy producers have been steadily increasing the pounds of beef produced from the relatively same number of cows.
Lance Zimmerman, senior animal protein analyst with Rabobank, says that the use of sexed semen on dairy heifers and beef genetics on cows has created incremental gains that add up to pretty big changes in the amount of beef sourced from the dairy industry.
That said, Zimmerman says that several factors have converged to leave the U.S. dairy industry short on heifers, at least in the short term. An aging cow herd, H5N1 infections in dairy cattle, and strong beef prices have all put pressure on retained dairy heifer numbers, he says.
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS | All Podcasts
