96 NEBRASKA CATTLEMAN February 2025 DEFEND OUR GRASSLANDS PREVENT AND REMOVE EASTERN REDCEDAR ----The Great Plains Grassland Initiative ---- VISIT YOUR LOCAL NRCS OFFICE OR A PARTNER BELOW FOR DETAILS. BEFORE AFTER Images courtesy of USDA-NRCS EASTERN REDCEDAR TREE REMOVAL Apply Now! USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender. © ® to expansion – a substantive increase in the heifer retention to enter the cow herd. At the risk of having the release of USDA’s Jan. 31 report paint me as “wrong” just a couple of days before this article hits mailboxes, I’ll say that I’ve yet to see or hear very much that looks or sounds like aggressive heifer retention on a national scale. Additionally, there are a number of headwinds that currently challenge the transition to an aggressive herd rebuild – among them higher interest rates, lingering drought concerns in some scattered areas and a combination of sky-rocketing cull cow prices and ever-increasing land values. These offer a quite attractive “off-ramp” to older producers who lack a clear picture of where the next generation of labor and management will come from to carry on their operations. A decrease in the percentage of heifers being finished in feedyards can be a leading indicator of herd expansion. As Chart 2 (graphic credit to Don Close, Terrain) indicates, as of Oct. 1, 2024, the percentage of heifers in finishing yards remained at 39.7 percent of total inventories – having changed scarcely little compared to the 2022 and 2023 data points and remaining well above the measures seen during the 2012-2017 beef breeding-herd rebuild. This data would indicate that if the industry is on the cusp of transition to an expansion phase, then we are just that – on the cusp – and not yet in a substantive herd-growth mode on a national scale. 2025 has the potential to be a year of transition to an overall expansion phase for the industry and could also see the tightest calf and yearling availability of this cycle if that is the case. ~NC~ MRS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 94 CONSUMER CONSIDERATIONS Don Close | Terrain ( Terrainag.com) Don Close, Keynote Speaker at the NC 2024 Annual Convention, is a senior animal protein analyst for Terrain, a team of economists who provide expert analysis to the customers of Farm Credit Services of America and other participating Farm Credit associations. During his presentation, Close gave the following observations on beef supply drivers. While we have continued to closely monitor beef supply drivers over the past year, we have been keeping an especially close eye on beef demand measurements because of known contracting supplies. We are monitoring beef demand with two metrics: • Real per capita expenditures, which takes total domestic supplies times price divided by population to derive monthly spending per person. • The consumer price index, which helps us gauge how beef prices are holding up in relation to all goods and services. We have carefully watched consumer behavior in reaction to all the pressure from inflation as well as the risk of a recession. And across the measurements, beef demand has been exceptional in relation to other proteins — as seen in both quality grade and by primal cut prices. Given the expectation of contracting supplies, retail prices will likely continue to increase but at a slower pace than in 2023 or 2024. While retail beef prices are expected to reach levels that impact consumers’ willingness to pay, we have not seen prices that erode consumers’ willingness to pay yet.
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