As October draws to a close, U.S. officials are reportedly going to meet with Mexican counterparts this week to talk about reopening the border. The possibility of trade resuming, coupled with President Donald Trump’s comments on lowering beef prices and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ announcement to “fortify the beef industry,” sent the cattle market spiraling in recent days. Despite the downturn, the fundamentals haven’t changed: reduced supply and strong consumer de

The USDA released its plan Wednesday to “fortify the American beef industry.” The plan is based on “strengthening ranches, rebuilding capacity, and lowering costs for consumers.” Wow! Where do I begin in my assessment? I do know that any response does not require 25 pages of text. If I boiled it down to my initial reaction, the first statement I will make is the beef industry, and specifically the ranching sector, does not need a government plan to make the market work. The m

There’s a lot of talk these days about “bubbles” in the U.S. economy. That bubble discussion often centers around artificial intelligence (AI), private equity, and digital currency such as bitcoin. This begs two questions regarding the dairy market. Was there a butter bubble? If yes, did that bubble just pop? Class IV milk futures, for butter and milk powder, have fallen drastically over the past few months, from $18 per hundredweight (cwt.) to settling at $14 per cwt. for co