Cow/calf operations in the southern Plains and across the U.S. are facing sharply negative production margins. WPI’s latest research suggests the average operation will lose $100/cow unit this year as rising feed costs are juxtaposed against stagnant or falling revenues. After spiking precipitously during 2014 and 2015 as the market faced tight cattle supplies, feeder cattle prices have fallen 50 percent from their highs. More recently, the spring 2019 bear trend in feeder cattle and live cattle futures has pressured cash feeder cattle prices even lower. Consequently, WPI’s revenue forecasts for the sale of calves and feeder cattle (the summation of present fall futures prices and the expected cash basis) are down 7 percent ver...