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Cattle business “great” for now

It’s a great time to be in the cattle business with the higher prices right now but a beef economist cautions what goes up can come down.

Scott Brown with the University of Missouri sees a $250 return per cow in the coming year, well above the previous beef cycle where returns were under 100-dollars per cow, “Certainly, if I’m a cow-calf producer who already has built my herd, perhaps, I look at the next couple of years and go ‘probably some of the best years you’ll have seen for a LONG period of time.”

But, in two to four years, he says, cattle prices could weaken, “By the time you’re going to expand that herd prices could be lower. As much as I know producers don’t like to hear this same old news, I say be the most efficient you can be at producing calves and you’ll be okay in the long term. But, don’t go out there expanding without knowing where you fit in that production cost curve relative to all the other producers in the state and country.”  Brown reminds producers of the old saying – “the best cure for high prices is high prices.”

~Missourinet contributed to this story~