Despite anticipating record-high calf values, the beef industry will start feeling the pinch of tight fed cattle supplies coming in the next year, Kevin Good, vice president of market analysis at CattleFax, told attendees at the 2024 CattleFax Industry Outlook Seminar, held on Feb. 2.

The Innovative Feed Enhancement and Economic Development Act of 2023, better known as the Innovative FEED Act, was developed to create options for producers to buy and use products that may not exist on the market today.

For farmers who are in grain, oil, energy and hay production, the CattleFax session at NCBA National Convention in Orlando may have had the answers to your questions.

Few times in history has the cattle industry offered more opportunity for profit to conscientious producers than right now. That was the primary message of CattleFax CEO Randy Blach’s executive summary at CattleFax’s Industry Outlook Seminar on Feb. 2. 

The census showed about a 6% drop in the total number of cattle and calves from 2017 to 2022, to just under 88 million head. However, the total number of cattle sold increased from about $77.2 billion in 2017 to some $89.4 billion in 2022, a jump of almost 16%.

“Where’s my El Nino?”
That’s the question many farmers and ranchers have been asking over the past year, and the answer is one many might not want to hear: El Nino is here, but it’s already on its way out the door.

In its semiannual report released Jan. 31, USDA NASS reported the total number of all cattle and calves in the U.S. at 87.2 million head on Jan. 1, 2024.

Range Beef Cow Symposium XXVII took place in Loveland, Colorado, on Dec. 13-14, 2023.