It seems governments just like to turn out reports, but you sometimes have to dig deeper to understand their implications. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be back right after this with an example.Most governments produce lots of reports with statistics on everything from agricultural acreages seeded to how many people live in each house in that country. But lots of times the numbers don't tell a quick, simple story. The U.S. Department of Agriculture just published a report that shows the smallest cattle inventory in America since 1959. Darrell Mark, extension livestock marketing specialist says the cattle numbers are low since beef cow slaughter has been high for several years and heifer retention in herds has been low. I think drought in many areas has been one of the reasons for these two trends. Now on first look you would think that according to supply and demand, cattle and beef prices would be returning produce is a nice profit. But that's not really the case. Mark sees some short-term demand issues. First, he relates the world-wide recession has complicated international demand citing a credit crunch for importers to obtain funds to make purchases and the U.S. dollar has rallied more than all other currency except the Japanese yen. On the domestic side, per capita, consumption of beef is down about 3.8 percent from the level of 2004. So while the USDA report doesn't tell a complete story of today's actual market, I think beef producers could see a nice price upturn as this recession works its way toward more positive times.

I'm Jeff Keane