Agricultural News
USDA Continues to Surprise Beef Industry with 2017 Cattle Inventory Report Exceeding Expectations
Wed, 01 Feb 2017 11:27:08 CST
Yesterday, the US Department of Agriculture released its 2017 Cattle Inventory report. Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays caught up with Don Close of Rabo AgriFinance at the Cattle Industry and NCBA Convention in Nashville this week, to get his reaction to the numbers which much like last week's Cattle on Feed report, was quite surprising.
"A lot bigger numbers than anybody was anticipating," Close sighed in disbelief. "Those are such large numbers to begin with - that's like turning an ocean vessel."
According to the report overall, the cattle inventory in the US has gone up 2 percent since January 1, 2016 which brings the current number to a grand total of 93.6 million head. Close says that Rabo had actually reached this number in their own estimated projections before the report was released, but admits that they did not expect to see this many cattle on the ground until at least a year from now. He contends that the machine to generate more beef here in 2017 is already in place and is building momentum.
"If you take the surprise out of the inventory numbers this afternoon, add that with the placement numbers that we saw last Friday afternoon," he calculated, "the ramifications that has for the number of cattle we could likely be seeing for the second half of the year - it's a big change."
Listen to Hays collect Close's full reaction to yesterday's surprising Cattle Inventory report, on today's 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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