Category: Livestock Marketing

All the talk of relaxing tariffs on imported beef, knowing that the majority of our beef imports are lean beef trimmings to go into ground beef competing with cull cow beef, suggested it might be time to take a quick look at the cull cow market.  

Most will remember that cull cow prices tend to hit their seasonal lows in the Fall.  The most important reason for the price decline is that more cows are culled from the herd in the Fall.  For beef cattle, the largest proportion of cows are culled in the Fall following calf weaning.  On the dairy side, cow culling increases from summertime lows.  The increase in supplies of cows for sale results in lower prices.  Another contributor to lower prices is the end of grilling season, with consumers shifting over to more Fall and Winter consumption patterns.  

So far this Fall, the cull cow market has defied normal seasonality.  Southern Plains cull cow auction prices hit about $165 per cwt back in June and have remained there since then.  A couple weeks of declines were followed by rebounds back to about $165 per cwt.  National average cutter quality cows have declined recently, slipping about $9 per cwt to $126.

While the live cow market has not declined much, the same cannot be said for the cow beef market.  The boxed cow beef cutout climbed to $340 per cwt but has declined to $317 over the last two months.  Wholesale 90 percent lean beef has declined from $436 to $404 per cwt over the same period.  Both the boxed beef cutout and wholesale 90 percent lean have followed the normal season pattern, declining into the Fall.  

We are likely to see some increased culling from the dairy side of the beef industry in the coming months.  USDA’s latest milk production report indicated the nation’s dairy cow herd at 9.85 million head.  That is the largest herd since at least 1993.  Milk production in September was 4 percent larger than the year before.  Milk prices are beginning to decline sharply with increased production.  There is no doubt that the increased returns from using beef bull instead of dairy breed semen to produce cross bred calves is boosting profits and aiding in the dairy herd expansion.  Beef cow culling is likely to remain low due to the historically small cow herd and incentives to expand.  More dairy cow culling and less beef cow culling will continue to leave cull cow prices high.

It’s turkey time, and a good opportunity to look at turkey prices and supplies as we head towards the big day.  Much higher wholesale prices have been in the news, so it’s also a good chance to examine wholesale versus retail prices and grocery store sales strategies.  

Wholesale, national average, 8-16 pound turkey prices are up a whopping 82 percent compared to last year in early November!  The heavier Tom turkeys weighing 16-24 pounds are up even more, 88 percent, compared to last year.  It’s important to recognize that these are spot market, wholesale prices, and that most people are interested in the retail prices they are going to have to pay this year.    

USDA publishes a weekly turkey retail feature report.  This report, using data from over 24,000 retail outlets across the country, indicates special and feature prices for turkey.  Whole, frozen turkeys weighing less than 16 pounds and those weighing more than 16 pounds averaged $0.93 and $0.92 per pound, respectively, this week.  Turkeys of those weights were $1.19 and $1.15 per pound last year.  Grocery store featured frozen turkey prices appear to be lower than last year.  Good news for consumers!  If you like a fresh turkey instead of frozen, those retail prices are running higher than last year.

To understand how the wholesale and retail prices can move in different directions it’s worth remembering that most outlets contract their estimated turkey needs early in the year.  Those contracted prices are likely much lower than the current wholesale market.  Actual retail turkey prices that consumers pay often reflect special prices and features.  As a grocery store meat buyer told me a long time ago, “The quickest way to get fired is to run out of turkeys at Thanksgiving!”  The wholesale price reflects buyers spur of the moment additional needs and the available supplies to fill those orders.  

For the year to date, total turkey production is about 3 percent less than last year.  But, since mid-year, production is about 2 percent higher than last year.  Total production has caught up after shortfalls early in 2025.  Overall, fewer turkeys have been produced this year, and fewer birds are in cold storage awaiting Thanksgiving.  HPAI is again impacting the spot market for turkeys.  Outbreaks on turkey farms have ramped up in the last 6 weeks in both Canada and northern states like Michigan, hitting those producers especially hard prior to the holiday driven demands. 

It looks like wholesale prices are much higher than last year, and retail pricing specials appear to be in full swing heading towards Thanksgiving.  Consumers may find a deal.  While we always talk about turkey price movements this time of the year, it always strikes me that the whole bird provides a lot of value for the dollar.  Most people get several meals from the bird.  If you’re blessed to have Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends, you’ll get a lot more value than can be reflected in money.

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Anderson, David. “Some Special Prices for Turkey Day.” Southern Ag Today 5(46.2). November 11, 2025. Permalink

Cattle futures markets remained volatile last week but tended to rebound following the sharp selloff generated by the discussion of plans to lower beef prices.  Given a couple of weeks, we now have a better picture of how cattle auction cash prices reacted to the futures market uncertainty.  

The CME December Live Cattle contract traded below $224 for part of the day on October 27^th, but has since recovered some and is trading above $232 at the time of this writing. This is sharply lower than the $248 price on October 16th. However, it is just a few dollars below the average trading price of the December contract during the month of September ($235.80). Similarly, the CME November Feeder Cattle contract traded below $330 for part of the day on October 28th but has since recovered some and is trading above $342 at the time of this writing. For context, this contract topped $380 on October 16th but averaged $353.72 during trading in September. The market uncertainty over the past few weeks has not crashed the futures market to low levels, but it has erased the rally seen in futures markets over the past month or two. 

Most auction markets operate sales one day per week, compared to the futures market that trades every weekday.  Local auctions have now had at least one sale since the futures market selloff and rebound, so we have the opportunity to better gauge the local cash market reaction.  Auction market prices saw sizable drops last week across the Southeast. The table shows selected averages for various states across the southeast.  Prices were lower across all states in the table for both 500-600lb steers and 700-800lb steers. Prices dropped the most in Oklahoma City and in Missouri. Averaging across all states, the value of a 550 lb. steer was about $150 lower per head in the southeast compared to the week prior. The value of a 750 lb. steer was about $120 lower per head. The impacts were certainly larger in some states. 

Fed cattle prices also dropped last week. The average live negotiated fed steer price fell $7 per cwt to $230.86, which is the lowest weekly average since the last week of September. Boxed beef cutout values did not decline. The choice cutout was about $7 higher last week and is $12 higher than it was two weeks ago.  It’s worth remembering that the cutout reflects the values of the 7 primal cuts weighted by their pounds in the carcass.  Imports would largely have more of an impact on lean beef trimmings for ground beef.  While some chucks and rounds go into ground beef, along with some sirloins and occasionally some briskets, the impact of more imports might have a more indirect effect on the boxed beef cutout.

There remains significant fundamental strength for cattle markets given the tight supplies of cattle and strong demand for beef. However, the past few weeks have shown that uncertainty can have swift impacts on cattle prices – not only for traders in futures markets but also at cattle auctions in towns across the U.S. 

Southeast Cattle Prices Prices $/cwt.		For Weeks Ending On 10/31/25   10/24/25     11/1/24			%Chg Prev. Week	%Chg Prev. Year	Chg Prev. Week
500-600lb. Feeder Steers	Mississippi MIL #1-2	$355.63	$374.66	$252.68	-5%	41%	($19.03)
	Arkansas MIL#1	$379.93	$406.43	$267.74	-7%	42%	($26.50)
	Kentucky MIL#1-2	$370.00	$396.52	$267.74	-7%	38%	($26.52)
	Oklahoma MIL#1-2	$378.76	$428.54	$265.80	-12%	42%	($49.78)
	Alabama MIL#1	$382.54	$405.10	$263.25	-6%	45%	($22.55)
	Tennessee MIL #1-2	$351.26	$361.37	$257.56	-3%	36%	($10.11)
	Texas  MIL #1-2	$347.73	$374.21	$263.65	-7%	32%	($26.48)
	Missouri MIL#1-2	$365.08	$406.06	$269.15	-10%	36%	($40.98)
700-800 lb. Feeder Steers	Mississippi MIL #1-2	$299.22	$318.83	$211.66	-6%	41%	($19.60)
	Arkansas MIL#1	$341.16	$355.77	$226.06	-4%	51%	($14.61)
	Kentucky MIL#1-2	$332.35	$341.63	$238.65	-3%	39%	($9.27)
	Oklahoma MIL#1-2	$334.26	$356.95	$246.09	-6%	36%	($22.69)
	Alabama MIL#1	$327.36	$333.72	$231.67	-2%	41%	($6.36)
	Tennessee MIL #1-2	$315.63	$322.00	$226.65	-2%	39%	($6.37)
	Texas  MIL #1-2	$312.50	$334.24	$241.60	-7%	29%	($21.74)
	Missouri MIL#1-2	$334.58	$362.91	$240.18	-8%	39%	($28.33)
Negotiated Fed Steers	Live Price	$230.86	$237.89	$189.82	-3%	22%	($7.03)
	Dressed Price	$358.54	$369.30	$296.97	-3%	21%	($10.76)
Boxed Beef Cutout	Choice Value, 600-900 lb.	$379.06	$372.13	$319.50	2%	19%	$6.93
	Select Value, 600-900 lb.	$360.32	$354.47	$288.37	2%	25%	$5.85

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Maples, Josh. “Cattle Auction Prices Follow Futures Prices Lower.” Southern Ag Today 5(45.2). November 4, 2025. Permalink

We’ll take a break from the cattle and beef market news of the last week to take a look at dairy markets. However, there is one important interaction between beef and dairy markets that intersects with recent news.

Profitable milk prices and falling feed costs in 2024 have led to a surge in the number of dairy cows since the first of the year.  USDA’s August Milk Production report indicated 9.52 million dairy cows in the U.S.  That is the highest number of dairy cows since 1993.  The number of dairy cows in the U.S. has typically fluctuated between 9.3 and 9.4 million over the last decade.  Cow numbers are particularly higher in the Plains.  Dairy cows in Texas hit 699,000 head; this is the most dairy cows in the state since 1958!  Milk processing capacity is growing hand in hand with cow numbers.  

In addition to more cows, milk production per cow has increased since April.  Production per cow hit 2,050 pounds in August, the largest August milk production per cow on record, up 1.3 percent compared to August 2024.  The combination of more cows and more milk per cow has milk production up 3.6 percent over the last 3 months compared to the same period last year.  

As production has surged, prices are beginning to decline sharply.  Cheese, butter, and non-fat dry milk (NFDM) prices are the basic product prices forming federal milk marketing order prices.  Cheddar cheese, 40 pound blocks, has moved between about $1.95 and $1.70 per pound all year.  While prices should be increasing seasonally, heading into the holidays, they are about $0.30 per pound below a year ago.  Butter prices have declined sharply over the last few weeks from $2.50 per pound to about $1.70 in mid-October.  NFDM prices have fallen sharply to $1.14 per pound, their lowest price of the year.  Lower product prices are filtering through to much lower milk prices to dairy farmers.

One area of interaction between dairy and beef cows is the cull cow market.  While beef cow slaughter remains much lower than last year, dairy cow slaughter is picking up and has been equal to last year since mid-year.  More dairy cows in the herd, falling milk prices, and record high cull cow prices will likely cause some more cow culling in the coming weeks.  A recent newspaper article quoted a dairy farmer in Wisconsin as saying we really needed more dairy culling to boost milk prices and increase supplies of beef. Harkening back to the 1980s and the dairy herd buyouts, which caused even more worries for many cattle producers. At the moment, there is no government program to encourage dairy cow culling. Unless something changes, it looks like the market will take care of this, too.

Anderson, David. “A Wave of Milk and Slumping Prices.” Southern Ag Today 5(44.2). October 28, 2025. Permalink

Could beef imports from Argentina reduce beef prices in the U.S.?

Argentina is the sixth largest beef producing country and the fifth largest beef exporting country, accounting for roughly 6 percent of global beef exports. Argentine beef production is about 27 percent of total U.S. production. In recent years, Argentine beef exports have been growing with the majority of beef exports going to China along with Israel, the E.U. and the U.S.

Argentina is the ninth largest source of beef imports in the U.S., accounting for about 2.1 percent of total U.S. beef imports thus far in 2025. U.S. imports of Argentine beef have been growing in recent years (recovery in Argentina) and were up 41.7 percent year over year through July (the latest data available since the shutdown).  

How much more beef can the U.S. import from Argentina?

It’s not clear how much capacity to increase beef exports exists currently in Argentina.  Domestic beef consumption in Argentina uses 70-75 percent of total beef production in the country.  If, for example, the U.S. doubled imports over 2024 levels, it would likely mostly be at the expense of domestic consumption in Argentina or other export markets for Argentine beef.  Such an increase in imports from Argentina would have a negligible impact on the total supply of beef in the U.S. market.   In fact, if the U.S. took all of the projected 2025 Argentine beef exports (not likely), it would represent less than 2.5 percent of the total U.S. beef supply.  

The Impact in U.S. beef markets

The majority of Argentine beef imports are lean processing beef used for ground beef production.  This beef is quite similar to beef imported from Brazil (and most other import sources).   Imports from Argentina are less than 10 percent of the imports from Brazil.  Increasing imports from Argentina would have a very slight impact in offsetting the reduction in imports from Brazil expected because of the sharp increase in tariffs on Brazil.  The impacts on beef imports from Brazil are not evident in the January -July import data and we have not had any updates since then. The August data should have been released in early October.  

Record high cattle and beef prices are occurring despite record beef imports.  Increased beef imports (mostly lean processing beef) partially offsets decreased nonfed beef production in the U.S., helping to moderate sharply higher ground beef prices and increasing utilization of fatty trimmings from U.S. fed cattle.  Argentina is a relatively minor source of beef imports and potential increases would not significantly change the overall supply of beef in the U.S. In short, it does not appear that increasing beef imports from Argentina would have any significant impacts on U.S. beef prices. At most, it might have a very slight (and probably undetectable) impact of moderating expected future increases in U.S. ground beef prices. 

This article originally appeared in Oklahoma State University Extension’s Cow-Calf Corner Newsletter. 

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