Better Market Conditions Ahead for Cattle!

It’s time for your Southeast Regional Ag News. On the Ag Information Network, I’m Haylie Shipp.

We are starting a two-day program here today, talking to Randy Blach. He is the CEO of CattleFax. We’re talking about the cattle markets. He says he is positive for better market conditions down the road saying the last 3 or 4 years have been challenging…

“The markets have largely performed very well with what we anticipated, but obviously we had a Russian invasion into Ukraine that stopped our rally early in the spring. We got most of that going here again in the fall, and again, we are selling our highest-priced cattle of the year this fall and will continue to see some push higher in here into the fall.”

As it results to the drought situation covering much of the U.S., Blach said the most difficult thing is watching many producers being forced to cull their cow herds to such high levels at this stage of the cattle cycle…

“We are finally in a position that cow-calf producers can get a payday, and they have to sell their herds. It is just devastating because we have gone through so many of these narrow margin years in here where we are just kind of getting by and make a few bucks, lose a few bucks, but now is a time for a payday and it is unfortunate they were not able to withstand the drought.”

We’re going to continue this discussion with Randy Blach, CEO of CattleFax tomorrow talking about the size of the U.S. cattle herd - where he’s expecting that will get to - as will as issues with freight. Join us for that tomorrow.