Agricultural News
FedCattleExchange.com Up and Running - Ed Greiman Says First Sale Was a Success
Tue, 07 Jun 2016 18:03:07 CDT
Superior Livestock's new FedCattleExchange.com has been live for a few weeks now, and Ed Greiman, chairman of NCBA's Cattle Marketing and International Trade Committee, is calling it successful.
Greiman sold cattle on the first auction May 25, and says despite technical issues with the website, the auction achieved its purpose to provide better price discovery in the cattle market.
"The good news of the sale is they sold 1,600 head of cattle. Everybody that I've talked to that sold said they thought that was about where the market was going to be," he says. "The other even better news is a lot of people were watching, and that's what we wanted.
"The fact that the site crashed because there were so many people trying to view it - I know some would say that's bad, but it's good news, it really is," he says.
The idea to create an electronic auction format to facilitate the trade of fed cattle stems from the industry's lack of cash sales. Greiman says FedCattleExchange.com is not about selling cattle for more money.
"It's about giving us another avenue to sell cattle rather than just putting them on a formula and handing them over to the packer," he says.
Greiman says it's important to remember that this idea was formulated by cattlemen in an effort to avoid a government-mandated solution to price discovery.
"What we need to be clear to Congress is that cattlemen are trying to fix their own problem," he says. "So if we need more price discovery, and the industry needs to see what fat cattle are bringing, this is one of the solutions, and the best part of it is this was a solution that was come up by cattlemen who are selling the cattle."
Listen to Greiman talk more about FedCattleExchange.com during the latest Beef Buzz.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network and is 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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