11-10 IAN Livestock Snap

The latest in livestock. Michael Stolp  researches  Northwest agricultural production and trends for Northwest Farm Credit Services and  in today’s report he analyzes the livestock market in the Northwest and throughout the country. Let’s hear about the livestock market. Beef prices is another area where there has been a lot of optimism and a lot of strength. Beef prices have been driven by a cow herd that  has gotten smaller, particularly smaller in the southern plains where they have moved into beef production. In the dairy market we saw some strength early on in the season and that improved a number of our dairy producers financial positions. However as we look to the current market as well as markets in 2012, we expect that dairy price will begin to weaken, additionally feed prices are really compressing dairy producers margins. Namely, as we look to hay. One of the final things that I will comment on is that we size smaller than normal supply of hay given that cool, wet season, strong demand, tight supplies and all of those factors point to strong hay prices today and into the foreseeable future. So that’s a quick look at the Northwest tag market.