Current Cattle Market Daily Headlines for January 14, 2021

americancattlemarkets

5 years ago

Nicaraguan beef processor gears for U.S. market expansion

China, the world’s largest consumer of meat, imported 9.91 million metric tons of meat in 2020.
Year-over-year, this was approximately a 60 percent increase in imports, mostly due do to China’s pork output dropping 19 percent in the first half of 2020 when African swine fever swept through their hog herd.
The U.S. is China’s largest supplier of pork and in 2020, China’s imports of U.S. pork increased 223.8 percent.
China ramped up their testing of imported chilled foods over fears of coronavirus in the second half of 2020, which caused imports to slow a bit, however they were still able to keep a healthy pace.
China is expecting their pork production to increase 10 percent in 2021, since they have aggressively restocked pig farms throughout the country.
- According to Rabobank, this will cause Chinese imports of pork to drop by as much as 30 percent next year.

The small village of Mead, NE, which has roughly 500 residents, has been dealing with serious problems caused by toxic byproducts produced by the local AltEn ethanol plant since 2018.
- Despite the residents’ best efforts, the plant has not taken into consideration the concerns of the community.
The AltEn ethanol plant uses a rare method to produce its ethanol; it uses grains that have been treated with Neonicotinoids, better known as Neonics.
- Besides the plant in Mead, there is only one other plant that uses the same method and it is located in Kansas.
Neonics are a neurotoxic insecticide. When grain treated with Neonics is used to produce ethanol, a green, toxic byproduct is produced.
Jody Weible, a longtime Mead resident and former planning commission member believes the green, toxic byproduct is causing health problems throughout the community.
- She worries that the toxic byproducts have the potential to threaten the water supply in Mead and surrounding areas.
  - “Our well is only 40 feet deep and the ethanol plant has tens of thousands of tons of toxic byproduct sitting on bare ground, no barriers, no cement. It’s going to eventually leech into one of Nebraska’s biggest aquifers,” said Weible.
- Just in 2020, the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy (NDEE) received 5 different complaints because of the toxic waste at the plant.
- The NDEE has given the ethanol plant until March to fix the issue and remove the toxins.

Cash fed cattle prices weakened this week as cattle feeders looked to get cattle gone for multiple reasons ranging from mud, corn prices to needed pen space.
Cash cattle are currently trading $14 cheaper than last year and they’re at a 10-year low.
Even though we’re seven months removed from the production slow down, getting cattle moved each week is a struggle, especially for cash market sellers who follow all the committed cattle who come first.
The cattle industry’s position will slowly improve over the next three months as currentness recovers and weights drop below the 2020 average.