There are some encouraging signs for the beef cattle herd

There is still a long way to go before the cattle herd starts heading in a positive direction but analyst Lance Zimmerman with Rabo AgriFinance says there are several encouraging signs.

“I would imagine because we do have some of that incentive out there to try and rebuild these herds. We’ve had good rain in certain areas. We’ve rebuilt hay supplies in some areas where it was awfully tight through the central plains this past year. We’ll start to see that number bottoming out earlier than the beef cow number, but we still have a ways to go before we see it trending strongly in a positive direction.”

Zimmerman says he expects the next round of calves to be very high quality and will help grow demand moving forward.

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