Cattle farmers explain why beef prices are rising

WCCO-AM / 830 WCCO

Bill Howard, 76, has been a cattle farmer most of his life, and has never seen the beef market as hot as it is now. "Right now, this is the highest prices it's been in history," he said.

Transcript

00:00My grandparents moved here in 1901, and there's always been cattle on the farm.

00:08I was a junior in high school, and so I took over management of the cattle, and I've been doing that since 65.

00:16But right now, this is the highest prices it's been in history.

00:21Right now, if you're in the cow-calf business, and you're not happy about the cattle market,

00:25you needed some Jesus in your life because that's probably the only thing that will make you happy

00:30because it is an outstanding market.

00:34It is simply supply and demand. We have historically low cattle numbers in both Mississippi and across the United States.

00:42It's basically Mother Nature. You go back into 2022, we had droughts in the Midwest.

00:48That spilled over into 2023. We're basically from New Mexico all the way across to the East Coast.

00:54Where you saw historic droughts, and so people sold off cattle because they couldn't feed them.

01:00So it's fewer cattle to make beef, and so there's still great demand for our product, lower supply,

01:08and that makes for higher cattle prices.

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