Current Cattle Market Daily Headlines for Friday, September 11, 2020

Mackenzie Johnston

6 years ago

Thick clouds of mosquitoes kill livestock after hurricane

Since Hurricane Laura hit, southwest Louisiana has been experiencing clouds of mosquitoes so thick that they’ve been killing cattle and horses.
Approximately 300-400 head of cattle have been lost in the area northeast of where the storm made landfall on August 27^th.
According to Dr. Craig Fontenot, a large-animal veterinarian, the swarms of mosquitoes have been so thick that the vast number of bites leaves horses and cattle anemic and bleeding under their skins.
- The animals also quickly become exhausted from constantly moving in an attempt to avoid the biting insects.
A deer rancher in the area lost about 30 of his 110 animals that had already been sold, a loss of $100,000.
Spraying has begun throughout the area and the mosquito populations are beginning to decrease.

On Wednesday, German officials confirmed the country’s first African swine fever (ASF) case in a wild boar found in the eastern state of Brandenberg.
The infected boar was discovered near the border with Poland.
- Poland is one of the many European countries that have been fighting ASF for a while now. The country had to lock down almost 450 farms following the discovery of the disease in a western province.
Germany is Europe’s leading pork producer and the disease may not impact commercial supply, but it will most likely jeopardize export capabilities because of customer fears.
- South Korea and the Philippines have already imposed bans on German pork.
This finding of ASF in Germany may help U.S. pork producers if countries that currently buy pork from Germany do decided to suspend trade.
- If China decides to close its border to German pork, who so far this year has accounted for 14 percent of China’s pork imports, U.S. pork producers could see demand significantly increase.
China has been dealing with its own ASF issues. The country’s pork imports through July were nearly 2.5 million metric tons, 105 percent higher than the same period a year ago.
- The U.S. has become the top supplier to China during the first seven months of this year, seeing exports jump four-fold to almost 478,000 metric tons.

Data has shown a big surge in U.S. beef imports this summer, and July statistics have confirmed those numbers.
- Total imports of fresh/frozen cooked beef were noted at 127,174 metric tons, 40.7 percent higher than year-ago levels.
- The largest increase in imports came from New Zealand. In the month of July, the U.S. imported 26,203 metric tons, almost double what was imported in 2019
- Imports from Argentina were noted at 2,746 metric tons, when back in 2019, the U.S. imported almost nothing from that country.
- Imports from Brazil in the month of July were 7,800 metric tons, approximately 141 percent higher than year-ago levels.