Current Cattle Market Daily Headlines for December 21, 2020

americancattlemarkets

5 years ago

Cattle president concerned with push for a beef checkoff referendum

Eric Jennings, President of the South Dakota Cattlemen’s Association, is concerned with the push for a referendum vote on the beef checkoff.
In an interview with WNAX radio out of Yankton, SD, Jennings said that the checkoff is needed to deal with attacks on the cattle industry from fake meat competitors, anti-animal agriculture activists and others trying to harm the industry.
- Additionally, he believes the program is needed to promote new beef products.
Jennings closed by saying that the beef checkoff has been a very successful program through the years and producers need to remember that it hasn’t had a price increase during that time. That one dollar per head checkoff doesn’t have near the buying power that it did when the program first began thirty years ago, but the checkoff has still done a great job of using those funds to promote and research the beef industry for cattle producers.

Tyson Foods, one of the country’s largest meat suppliers, has fired seven managers at its plant in Waterloo, IA after investigating allegations that they bet on how many plant workers would get infected with coronavirus.
According to Tyson Foods President and CEO Dean Banks, the actions of these individuals do not represent Tyson’s core values and that is why immediate action was taken.
The plant employs 2,800 workers, mostly immigrants and refugees.
- More than 1,000 of these workers have been infected with the virus and six have died because of it.
Tyson had employees move between a different plant in Iowa where an outbreak was occurring and the Waterloo plant, according to the lawsuit filed by the family of Isidro Fernandez, who died in April.
- Tyson did not provide adequate testing or quarantine the employees before they entered the Waterloo facility.
While the virus was spreading throughout the Waterloo plant, Tyson was offering $500 “thank you bonuses” to employees who showed up for every scheduled shift for three months.
- Plaintiffs argue that this incentivized sick workers to continue working.
  - A Tyson spokesman did not confirm if these incentives were actually offered. The spokesman also chose not to respond directly to other allegations from the pending litigation.

A second wave of Covid-19 cases has caused state and local governments to limit travel and promote social distancing.
As a result, consumption of ethanol-blended gasoline is quickly declining, according to the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA.)
Since the start of the pandemic, through November, ethanol producers had already lost $3.8 billion dollars.
Between March and November, producers cut production by two billion gallons in response to reduced travel and lower fuel demand.
According to the Energy Information Administration, during the first week of December, consumption of both gasoline and ethanol fell to their lowest points since May.

Cattle on feed as of December 1^st were reported at 12.036 million hd., which is 5,000 hd. more than December 1^st, 2019.
Placements in feedlots during November totaled 1.91 million hd., a decline of 9 percent from 2019.
Marketings of fed cattle during November totaled 1.78 million hd., down 2 percent compared to the same month in 2019.