An Alberta Agriculture and Forestry (AF) analyst says that expansion of Alberta’s cattle herd needs a little help from Mother Nature.
“On the beef cattle side, prices remain near record highs,” says Jason Wood, provincial livestock market analyst, AF, Edmonton. “On the export front, year to date feeders are down 1%, slaughter fed cattle are down 49.5%, and slaughter cows are down 28% to the U.S. We’re still seeing a strong pull for feeders to the U.S. partly because of the large expansion effort that continues in the U.S. beef herd. For July 1, the USDA says the beef herd is up 2.5% and that heifer retention is up 7% over July 2014. These are strong numbers and the largest U.S. expansion in 25 years.”
Wood says Statistics Canada will be releasing their cattle inventory report in the next couple of weeks.
Source : Agriculture and Forestry