Agricultural News
OSU's Derrell Peel Previews 2016 Cattle Market Outlook
Thu, 07 Jan 2016 16:30:38 CST
With the start of a new year, the cattle markets have made a big transition. From high cattle prices in late 2014 to a severe drop in the second half of 2015. Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist Derrell Peel said the markets showed recovery at the end of the year and this set the stage going into 2016.
"We've made most of that adjustment, so I don't see that same kind of adjustment happening," Peel said. "At this point I think we move forward now, you know with the supply and demand conditions that we see out there."
Beef herd expansion was aggressive in 2015. The annual U.S. cattle inventory numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will be released on Friday, January 29. Those numbers will confirm just how aggressive herd expansion was this past year. Peel anticipates another strong year of herd expansion in 2016 because of volatility in the cattle market in late 2015. He said that may have tempered expectations, so expansion may be slower than expected. He's looking for more herd expansion this year in western Oklahoma and west Texas.
The Southern Plains region has received a lot of moisture over the last month. Oklahoma just had the wettest December on record. The Texas Panhandle and eastern New Mexico received tremendous snow over the holidays from El Nino. Peel said the snow directly impacted feedlots and dairies in the region and cattle losses were significant. He said there isn't much indication that beef cattle suffered as much of the direct losses but performance was impacted by the cold weather, winds and muddy conditions. Peel said conditions across the much of the central plains remain muddy and cattle performance has struggled. He said the direct impact on the market will be reduced carcass weights on feedlot cattle.
Radio Oklahoma Network Farm Director Ron Hays featured Peel on the Beef Buzz feature. Click or tap on the LISTEN BAR below to listen to today's Beef Buzz.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region 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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