market report

[D.R. Cattle]

Florida live cattle on the rise. This weeks auctions are putting them right back where they were before the BSE incident. Volumes are still low. I think I'll haul the end of this month as planned without losing a single cent. (Crossing my fingers)

 

[D.R. Cattle]

http://www.ams.usda.gov/lsg/mncs/ls_orl.htm

 

[Frankie]

That report sounds good. BUT.... I was talking to the beef manager at a large supermarket last week. He expects beef prices to come down. He says there's a lot of beef stacking up in warehouses that can't be shipped to Korea or Japan. It will wind up in the domestic market. Several of the large packing plants have laid off workers. And the number of cattle being killed every day is off consideraby. All those things will eventually affect sale barn prices. I've seen estimates that the inability to export 10% of our beef will cut prices for live cattle at least 15%. And we still have to put into place the changes the USDA is requiring in killing and testing cattle. So it's not over. You might want to look at the http://www.meatingplace.com. Their "Daily News" has some articles relevent to the meat business and often to our business.

 

[D.R. Cattle]

Frankie I was thinking the same thing. Retail cuts are a lot cheaper in the stores than they were a month ago. Nevertheless, how can live cattle still be up while retail is down? Is it a temporary thing because cattlemen withheld all of their stock for a few weeks to see what would happen? Anyway, maybe it will hold for two more weeks and I can get my load shipped. What is the status of the USDA investigation anyway? They traced the cow, killed a bunch of calves and then everything got quiet? What will trigger the return of the export market?

 

[Anonymous]

I sent the calves off of my heifers this morning so we will see how it goes here in Tx.

 

[Frankie]

Frankie I was thinking the same thing. Retail cuts are a lot cheaper in the stores than they were a month ago. Nevertheless, how can live cattle still be up while retail is down? Is it a temporary thing because cattlemen withheld all of their stock for a few weeks to see what would happen? Anyway, maybe it will hold for two more weeks and I can get my load shipped. What is the status of the USDA investigation anyway? They traced the cow, killed a bunch of calves and then everything got quiet? What will trigger the return of the export market?

I haven't been able to understand for a while how cattle prices were so good and beef wasn't just sky high in the supermarket. It went up, yes, but didn't seem to be keeping up with cattle prices. Retailers had a good built in margin, I guess, and were able to hold prices for consumers while they paid more for beef supplies.

You're right, BSE has slid from the front page of the newspapers and headlining the news. I think that's a good thing and credit the NCBA and USDA for getting out factual information from the start. The last I heard they were still looking for the rest of the cows shipped into the US with the affected cow. And they had killed over 100 bull calves at the place that had bought her bull calf. They wanted to test that calf and could not identify him from all the other Holstein bull calves. So they killed and tested them all.

The US has a negotiating team in Japan, trying to resume exports there. They're asking that we test every cow before they will accept meat from that cow. That's why we don't really know the cost of this thing.

Good luck when you sell your calves. I've seen some Canadian cattlemen say sell as quickly as possible. But they are in a more difficult position that we are, at least so far. If we don't get our export markets back, things will get a lot worse.

 

[txag]

And they had killed over 100 bull calves at the place that had bought her bull calf. They wanted to test that calf and could not identify him from all the other Holstein bull calves. So they killed and tested them all.

anyone know why dna wasn't used? too expensive?

 

[D.R. Cattle]

1 more thought. Australians are telling Japan they can pick up where US Beef left off, that they can fill our gap. That may be true, but what measures are in place to deem their beef safe moreso than US Beef? Somebody pissing in the wind?

 

[Frankie]

1 more thought. Australians are telling Japan they can pick up where US Beef left off, that they can fill our gap. That may be true, but what measures are in place to deem their beef safe moreso than US Beef? Somebody pissing in the wind?

They've never had a BSE case in Australia. That's why their beef is considered safer than ours. Here's a clip from http://www.meatingplace.com.


"Australia says it can fill Japan's beef shortfall
by Joshua Lipsky on 1/13/04 for Meatingplace.com

Australia has assured Japanese agriculture officials that it can help fill Japan's shortfall in beef, according to Meat and Livestock Australia spokesperson Damon Whittock.
"Australia will be unable to match the complete shortfall in imports, but we have identified some capacity to supply some of the additional beef the Japanese market requires," Australian Agriculture Minister Warren Truss said in a statement.
While Australia said it would provide Japan with extra beef, the Australian government has requested that Japan lower its punitive tariffs on beef imports.
"We told them our beef exporters can certainly play a role in supplying more beef exports, but the higher tariffs in Japan are helping push prices higher," said Australian Cattle Council chief Brett de Hayr.
Tariffs on Australian beef imported into Japan rose from 38.5 percent to 50 percent on Aug. 1, 2003, under a World Trade Organization rule that allows an automatic increase if imports rise by more than 17 percent.
However, there is concern Australia will be unable to meet Japan's demand for more beef with farmers battling to recover from Australia's worst drought in 100 years and cattle numbers down by 6 percent."

I don't believe they can furnish the high quality beef that Japan got from the US and Canada. But we'll see....

 

[Anonymous]

Just if ya'll are interested, The calves I took yesterday to sale did better than I expected. Overall the prices were up in all classes.

 

[Colin Chevalley]

Yes Australia has some of the best beef in the world. A fair percentage of it grassfed. No we haven't had any BSE and I don't think we will because of our larger scale grassfed operations. Any outbreaks of disease,Johnes or Anthrax has been in the more heavily grazed areas of Victoria. That state has a colder climate and gets winter rainfall.
Cattle prices are set to rise here because at last some of the beef producing areas have had from 5 to 20 inches of rain over the past week,in Queensland and New South Wales.
We sold calves last Monday and they returned $450 for us they were 5 months old South Devon/South Brahvon cross. These prices were comparable to before Christmas.
We are hoping they get up to $600, as we have the bulk of our calves to go in the next two months.
Here's hoping we all have a successful year everywhere in the world.
Colin