Beef Cow Herd Down 2% From July 2020

Aug 31, 2021

By Doug Mayo

beef-cow-herd-down-2-from-july-2020 Source: NASS July 1 2021 Cattle Report

USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released the July 1, 2021 Cattle Inventory Report at the end of last month. This report shows that the National Cattle Inventory has continued to shrink since the peak in 2018. The chart above tracks the national inventory of beef cows that calved. You can see the decline in inventory since the most recent peak of 2018.

Source: NASS July 1 2021 Cattle Report

In the report, NASS broke down the inventory by class of animal. You can see that the all cattle and calves inventory is down only 1% from 2020, but beef cows and beef replacement heifers are down 2% since last year. Interestingly dairy cattle are up 2%, and replacement diary heifers are up 3% this year with the recent increase in milk prices. Dairy cattle contribute to the beef supply at some point, but the dairy herd represents not quite a third of the total cattle inventory. Weaned calves and steers are off 1% from last year, as were cattle on feed. The glut in the feedyards of cattle waiting for slaughter and processing is also improving, with slightly fewer cattle to be fed this coming year. The final class reported where the 2021 calf crop which was off very slightly (less than 1%) from last year.

What does this mean for local ranchers?

The national beef cow herd is still shrinking. Economics 101 tells you that when you reduce the supply of a commodity, the price or value of the product should improve, as long as demand for the product is constant or improving. With restaurants and schools back open for in-person business, demand for beef should also continue to improve. We have definitely seen higher demand for beef in grocery stores since COVID19 took hold last spring. While there were real issues getting beef processed in 2020, that issue is also improving. The drought in the western states is likely the most significant reason for the reduction in beef cattle this year, but this reduction should be of benefit to producers in the South where rainfall has been much more plentiful. This is one of the tough things about agriculture, western ranchers are in trouble, but eastern ranchers benefit from the improved market price. While the change in inventory reported were not large changes, it is good news that national beef herd is still contracting. Cattle prices should continue to improve, baring some major economic jolt to the system that changes demand for the product. As more and more people are employed again, and are working away from home and traveling, demand for beef should also continue to improve. As more Americans eat food from restaurants, we should also see the value return for high quality products as well. But, the changes highlighted in this recent report are still relatively small, so I would not get too excited about this yet. It is still moving in the right direction though, so there is reason for optimism in the future.

Source : ufl.edu

Video: The 15-Year Bet Behind Every New Variety!

Canada is trying to decide how much agricultural research capacity it can afford to lose. Brian Rossnagel believes the better question is whether the country can afford to rebuild it.

The longtime barley and oat breeder makes the case with a simple fact about his profession: the consequences of today’s decisions may not become visible for 10 or 15 years.

“Pick the right parents. That’s the biggest thing,” Rossnagel says. “If you pick the wrong parents, you’re not going to get anywhere—and you don’t know that until 10 years, 15 years later.”

That warning carries particular weight as Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada moves to reduce spending and streamline parts of its science operations. The department’s 2026–27 plan anticipates the loss of approximately 665 positions by 2028–29 and says some research will be reduced where capacity exists in academia or industry. AAFC says the changes will make its science operations more cost-effective over the long term.

For Canada’s seed industry, Rossnagel’s career illustrates what is at stake.

This fall, the retired University of Saskatchewan breeder will be inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame. During his 35-year career at the Crop Development Centre, he helped develop more than 100 barley and oat varieties, including CDC Austenson—one of Western Canada’s most widely grown feed barleys. His induction recognizes not only those varieties, but the collaboration and research system that made them possible.

Rossnagel is quick to emphasize that none of it was the work of one person.

“The first thing I thought about was all the other people who contributed to whatever success I and my program had over the years,” he says. “We know that it’s not an individual who does this. It’s a group—a team.”

That team extends well beyond the breeder whose name appears beside a variety. It includes technicians, pathologists, quality specialists, statisticians, regional testing sites, seed growers and industry partners. It also includes the breeders who came before and those who will carry the germplasm forward.

CDC Fraser barley, for example, moved through three breeding careers. Its parents came from Brian Harvey’s program. Rossnagel advanced the material after Harvey retired, and Aaron Beattie later guided it through registration and release.

That kind of handoff is normal in plant breeding. The person who makes the original cross may never see the resulting variety reach farmers.

It also explains why lost research capacity cannot simply be switched back on when budgets improve.

“If you shut it off, it’s very, very difficult—and particularly costly—to start it up again,” Rossnagel says. “If you have to start from scratch, it’s going to be at least 10 years before anybody notices whether you’re getting anything done or not.”

The concern is not simply how many experimental lines Canada can process. Modern equipment, statistical tools and genetic technologies allow today’s breeding programs to evaluate tens of thousands of lines—far more than Rossnagel could handle when he entered the field in the early 1970s.

But efficiency and automation do not generate every idea.

“If you pare back down, and instead of having six or seven individual scientists concentrating on wheat breeding, you go down and say three people could handle all this, well, that’s half the ideas gone,” he says. “Particularly if you happen to lose the three people who had the really neat and innovative ideas, boy, that’s a problem.”

It is a timely distinction for Canadian agriculture. Consolidating programs may preserve the volume of material moving through a system, at least initially. It may not preserve the diversity of thinking, regional knowledge or willingness to pursue unconventional crosses.

That regional knowledge matters because Canadian agriculture is not one uniform production environment. A variety suited to southern Alberta may face different disease, moisture and maturity pressures than one grown in Manitoba, Ontario or Atlantic Canada.

“Agriculture is applied biology,” Rossnagel says. “Biology, all around the Earth, moves from the poles to the equator. It does not move from Newfoundland to B.C. like politics do.”