This week’s issue is our annual sheep edition, and we’re happy to have so many positive articles on sheep. It’s about time.
Although lamb and wool prices are up, I realize there are ever-present hardships for the industry to overcome, but it doesn’t mean we can’t have some celebrations across the region.
In the last month there have been three events celebrating the sheep industry – the Wyoming Sheep and Wool Festival in Powell, the Wyoming State Fair Sheep Wagon Show and Dutch Oven Cookoff in Douglas and the Glenrock Sheepherders Rendezvous in Glenrock. All of these have been well attended and fun events for people of all ages.
At one time, sheep were king in Wyoming and the reason many small communities got started across the state. I know there was a time when one drove from Casper to Riverton, it was all sheep country, and the same could be said for many other parts of the state, such as the southwestern area and the Big Horn Basin, Buffalo and Cheyenne.
It is good to see celebrations taking place and keeping the history of the sheep industry intact.
On the beef issue, there has been a lot of turmoil for some time now over the rising cost of beef, especially ground beef, which accounts for around one-half of all beef sales in the nation today.
Due to affordability and the upcoming midterm election, President Donald Trump has been looking for ways to lower the cost of beef at the meat counter, and so far, whatever he has come up with hasn’t been very popular.
For many years, the price of cattle has been cyclical – every 10 to 11 years, prices reversed. This has not taken place in the latter years.
So here we are, with record-low numbers of cattle, high demand for value-added beef and protein around the world, one of the largest droughts in the last few years and an aging cattle producer population. This has created record-high prices for beef.
The world knows American beef is the best-tasting and tenderest there is, and our president is fooling around with ground beef prices. But we know ground beef isn’t the only product with rising prices lately in the grocery store.
Trump has temporarily increased the quota for tariff-free imports of lean beef over 90 days to substantially lower the price of ground beef in the U.S. before the midterm election. Before this, he opened the Mexican Border to bring in cattle which caused U.S. prices to decline.
The U.S. will allow up to 300,000 metric tons of lean beef to be imported with no out-of-quota tariff. Trump also wants ranchers to build up their herds to raise national numbers.
He doesn’t realize ranchers would be building up their herds if it were profitable and if there wasn’t a multi-state drought.
The bad part is some are blaming ranchers and producers for small cattle numbers. They don’t realize it takes around three years to see an increase.
This action has caused futures to drop at the fat cow level, as well as some lower prices across all markets. Keep in mind, this is taking place during the fall calf run and the start of the cull nonfat cow run.
The weeks ahead will be interesting.
Dennis Sun is the publisher of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup, a weekly agriculture newspaper available online and in print.
