Current Cattle Market Daily Headlines – Wednesday May 13, 2020

Mackenzie Johnston

6 years ago

Senators introduce spot market bill

On Tuesday, U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Senator Jon Tester of Montana introduced a bill to require each U.S. meat processing facility that slaughters over 125,000 head of cattle each year to purchase 50% of their weekly volume of beef slaughter on the open market.
A lack of cash negotiated trade in recent years has destroyed price discovery within our cattle markets. The fundamentals of the CME cattle futures contracts have also been negatively impacted.
If this bill is passed, the Livestock Mandatory Reporting system will be better utilized as a mechanism for accurate and transparent reporting.
Co-sponsors of this bill:
- Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa
- Steve Daines of Montana
- Mike Rounds of South Dakota
- Tina Smith of Minnesota
- Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi
“We would like to thank the nearly 4,400 individual producers and state and local organizations for undertaking this truly grassroots effort in support of #faircattlemarkets. USCA will be calling on these advocates in the near future to continue pushing forth a workable solution,” said U.S. Cattlemen’s President, Brooke Miller.

Year-to-year farm bankruptcies are up 23%.
There have been more than 600 chapter 12 farm bankruptcies over the last 12 months. “That’s the third highest number we’ve seen in the last 20 years and while it’s still well below what we saw in the 80s, it’s still a very concerning trend,” said John Newton, American Farm Bureau Chief Economist.
Wisconsin has been hit the hardest with nearly 80 bankruptcies in a 12-month period. This is largely due to the struggles the dairy industry has faced over the last several years.
Following Wisconsin is Nebraska with 41 chapter 12 bankruptcies, and then Iowa with 37 filings.
These bankruptcies come as no surprise with farmers and ranchers dealing with depressed markets for the past couple of years. Now that coronavirus has wreaked havoc within our industry, we will start to see even more producers face this harsh reality.