Agricultural News
One of the Big Five Beef Stories of 2010- Best Cash Cattle Prices and US Beef Exports Since 2003 Help Cattle Industry Profitability
Fri, 31 Dec 2010 5:36:15 CST
Strong cattle prices and a tremendous year for beef exports combine to be our final Top Five Beef Story of the year as we do our final Beef Buzz for 2010.
Cash cattle prices hit their high for 2010 earlier this week at $107 per hundredweight. That's just shy of the all time highs we saw in the fall of 2003- prices that year ahead of the "Cow that Stole Christmas" touched $110. In addition to seven year highs on cattle ready to be harvested, calf and yearling cattle prices have also been at historic highs in 2010 as well. Dr. Derrell Peel says the tightness of supplies of cattle suggest that the highs of 2010 may be exceeded in the new year- but by how much will be dictated by how consumers react to higher retail beef prices. We feature comments from Dr. Peel from earlier this month on today's Beef Buzz.
This top beef story for 2010 is a combination of both record high cattle prices in the feedlot and in the sale barn- as well as a magnificent beef export market for the year that ends today. 2010 has been a banner year for U.S. beef exports, with year-to-date sales through October up 16 percent in volume and 28 percent in value, to 863-thousand metric tons worth 3.28-billion dollars. According to National Cattlemen's Beef Association Chief Economist Gregg Doud, beef exports this year are on pace to match or even exceed beef export value we saw in 2003.
That's the year where we saw exports soar as Canada discovered their first case of BSE early that year- then at the very end of the year- Christmas Eve- BSE was reported in the United States as a Canadian born dairy cow was tested positive for Mad Cow disease.
Indeed, for the first tens months of this calendar year, the value of exports per head is 145-dollars, which is 8-dollars-60-cents more than values back in '03. Doud gives much of the credit to the weak dollar, which makes U.S. beef more affordable than its primary export competitor in key foreign markets like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Russia. We feature comments with Doud as well in today's Beef Buzz as we spotlight this final Top Five Beef Story we have chosen and reported on this final week of 2010.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the state on the Radio Oklahoma Network- but is also a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the listen bar below for today's show- and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the state on the Radio Oklahoma Network- but is also a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the listen bar below for today's show- and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
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