Consumers may see higher beef prices later this year, since feeder cattle prices have been record high because feeder calves are in short supply, and that’s encouraging cattle feeders to aggressively buy feeder cattle now, and they expect to continuing to bid up calves on into the summer, in order to get the feeders they need to place into feedlots this fall. Feedlot operators are facing a couple of challenges as they attempt to find feeder cattle. First, cow numbers have been down for a couple of years, which has limited the number of U.S. calves going into feedlots. Then in November of 2024, Mexican feeder cattle were banned until February, due to the potential for New World screw worm flies and larva catching a ride on cattle coming into the U.S. across the southern border. Since February, feeder cattle have been allowed into the U.S. on a case by case basis. So the uncertainty of feeder cattle imports, and the expected short supply of U.S. calves this fall have left cattle feeders facing a potential short supply of cattle for placement in feedlots this fall. To date, there have been about 223 and a half thousand head of Mexican feeder cattle imported in the U.S., but that’s only about 35% of what had been imported from Mexico during the same period last year.
R-CALF USA is calling on the FDA to approve ivermectin to help protect livestock from the possible spread of New World screwworm in the U.S. The group says that feed-grade ivermectin is a proven tool to protect domestic herds and wildlife, especially in southern border states. The organization highlights the success of the drug in limiting the spread of cattle fever tick, and their news release states that “The potential impact on the United States livestock markets would be immensely negative if an actual case of New World screwworm was identified in the USA. Until an adequate response with gamma ray irradiation of male screw worm flies can be implemented, R-Calf USA contends that feeding of ivermectin is a very real defense.”
Last week, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins signed three waivers allowing Arkansas, Utah, and Idaho to restrict Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program purchases of soda. Indiana, Iowa, and Nebraska already have similar waiver requests approved, and applications from seven additional states are under review.
While checking on the status of drought in the southwest U.S. for this week, I ran across an interesting government website, the National Integrated Drought Information Systems, which contains a lot of interesting data concerning drought in the U.S. For example, between 1895 and 2010, on average, around 14% of the United States experienced severe to extreme drought in any given year, and the U.S. has not experienced the level of drought that hit the country during the Dust Bowl era of the 1930s, when, during the summer of 1934, over 66% of the lower 48 states were in drought. As for wet conditions, during May of 2019, over 82% of the U.S. was abnormally wet.
Currently all of the counties in the Four Corners Region are experiencing moderate to extreme drought. Montezuma County received some recent rainfall that helped to moderate drought conditions a bit, leaving the county in moderate drought, while the other Four Corners counties in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah are classified with moderate to extreme drought in some areas of these counties.
Benjamin Franklin wrote, “When the well’s dry, we know the worth of water.”
