Small Cattle Herd with No Signs of Rebuilding
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.
The USDA’s July 1 Cattle on Feed Report showed the lowest number of U.S. beef cattle in a decade. Scott Brown, Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics with the University of Missouri, says this is the smallest beef herd in quite some time…
“Absolutely, you know, we fell below the lower level that we saw back in 2014. Some of the lowest we've seen in terms of a July 1 estimate. USDA hasn't given us July 1 inventory as far back as January 1, but it's the lowest that we've probably seen since the 1960s.”
What’s more, Brown says there were no signs in the latest report that cattle producers had begun adding to their herds…
“We got cattle on feed last Friday, as well and 40 percent of July 1 on feed were heifers. That's not an expansion number. In 2014 and 2015, we were down around 31 percent of the on-feed inventory with heifers, so we're not growing. None of that data suggested we are growing the herd, and I think we just got out of the July one report that information back of further declines.”
The numbers showed beef cattle at 29.4 million head as of July 1, three percent lower than last year.
