USDA will release its Cattle on Feed report tomorrow; the consensus pre-report analysts’ estimate is for the inventory of cattle on feed to be 101 percent of the prior year. This would be the sixth consecutive month that inventories were equal to or larger than the previous year. Prior to that, from September 2022 to September 2023 feedlot inventories were below year ago levels.
The analysts’ pre-report estimates have marketings at 104 percent of last year and placements at 106 percent of last year, the latter coming in a range of 103 to 109 percent of 2023. For both, note that this is a leap year with an extra day in February. Likewise for placements, feeder cattle imports are running ahead of last year.
However, as...
What You Need to Know Today: Day three of the Pro Farmer Crop Tour found corn yield potential below last year in both Illinois and western Iowa. Illinois corn yields averaged 184.2 bushels/acre, down from 199.6 bushels/acre last year and the 199.2 bushels/acre three-year average, while wester...
The USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) projects China’s chicken imports to drop by 33 percent this year and another 15 percent next year, as domestic production outpaces growing consumption and the country’s own exports surge. In its annual report on the Chinese poultry...
Key Takeaways: $13 billion in new U.S. dairy processing investment is moving across the sector, led by cheese ($3.2 billion), milk and cream ($2.9 billion), and yogurt and cultured dairy ($2.8 billion), with butter-powder capacity ($1.6 billion) and ice cream ($530 million) rounding out the bu...
