By Kay Ledbetter
While the fed cattle futures market reacted and eventually the cash market might react to news of the New World screwworm’s arrival in the United States, nothing has changed with the quality or quantity of the meat supply, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service economist.
While the New World screwworm can infest any warm-blooded animal, including humans on occasion, the overall message is it does not affect meat.
“This is something to learn about, be aware of, but this isn’t anything to panic about,” said David Anderson, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension agricultural economist and professor in the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Agricultural Economics. “This isn’t a beef or pork or chicken consumption or meat problem at all. The animals can be treated and survive if it is caught early, and it doesn’t affect the meat whatsoever.”
Volatility in the futures market expected
The fed beef cattle futures market reacted immediately, Anderson said, dropping some and then going back up quite a bit, before dropping again.
“I think that’s what a lot of us expected, that once an announcement happened about screwworm being found in the United States, we’d see volatility in the future’s market – that’s just kind of how the futures market works,” he said.
A week after the announcement, futures for fed cattle are down to $229 per hundredweight compared to $250 per hundredweight in the futures market prior to the screwworm finding, Anderson said.
It is too early to tell the effect on the cash market, whether that is feedlot cattle headed to a packer or calves marketed at sale barns across the state, he said.
Source : tamu.edu