Central Coast, California | Agreed with not wanting to touch the politics. So as to the supply and demand side of it.
I think that many are wanting to expand but the cowherd is much harder to increase than corn acreage. It is a time and numbers game.
If we kept every heifer and bred her we would could only increase the cow herd by 50 percent and those heifers would not calve until next year and those calves wouldn't be turned into beef until 2 years after that. So it's a 3 year timeline to make those extra pounds that will probably not be sold into these market highs.
Add into that the fact that every animal retained to grow the cow herd is one less sold into beef so it drives up the scarcity of the moment and reduces the cash flow for the current year.
Add in the constraints of drought, hay prices, land availability and prices and its adding up to a slow expansion. The cow/calf guy has been in the black for 3 years running and that helps but we spent the decade before that much closer to the red so I'm dipping a toe into expansion not jumping in head first. |
Trump and beef
