Beef expert identifies industry trends in a troubled market
12:54 p.m. Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Ongoing consumer demand, and a return to the global marketplace, both hold promise for a beef industry that continues to shrink.
Wes Ishmael, contributing editor for "Beef Magazine," visited Manhattan for K-State's annual Beef Stocker Day. Ishmael says stocker operators are adjusting to a market where prices are driven by demand, rather than supply.
"I think we've already seen more demand for what the stocker industry provides, in terms of putting more pounds on with forage, outside of the feedlot," Ishmael said. "We've seen that in the way the price spreads have kind of collapsed, based on weight and that kind of thing."
Ishmael adds the industry's best hope lies in the overseas markets that were temporarily lost in 2003's BSE crisis.
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"Domestic consumer demand has remained strong, especially in light of all the financial crisis gripping the nation. Our nation's cow herd is contracting. It probably will for a couple more years, and we've seen that attrition of producers, over the last couple of decades," he said. "Any hope that we have, as a nation, to grow our industry, it really seems that it's going to rest on that global market, and really just maintaining the national herd size that we have currently."
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