Where’s The Beef? A University of Oklahoma farm advisor is predicting 4.8% drop in beef production this year as consumption continues to drop across the US. In 2011 the consumption drop amounted to 3.8%.
“Beef consumption may drop more sharply in 2014 with a 5% decrease in per capita consumption compared to the lower 2013 level,”Derrell Mr. Peel said. “Furthermore, these decreases in beef production and consumption almost certainly imply higher wholesale and retail beef prices, although other factors will impact the price response to lower supplies.”
USDA figures show per capita beef consumption has fallen 12% from 2007 through 2012.
CDFA Expected To Raise Milk Prices
California dairymen may get at least temporary price relief from the California Department Of Food & Agriculture who are expected to raise the minimum price of milk in the state for six months. Fresno bankruptcy attorney Riley Walter, who testified at a December hearing on the plan, says he had been working with 60 dairy families who had experience extreme financial pressure due to low milk prices. The pressure has been made worse by record high feed prices due to the Midwestern drought. Around 100 dairy operators in the state are expected to be out of business in the past year.
Michael Marsh, CEO of Western United Dairymen, noted that 50 dairy sellouts have occurred in the last eight months within the organization’s membership. Tom Wegner, director of economics and dairy policy at Land O’Lakes, testified that 43 of its dairy farmer members have discontinued milking this year “in large part due to the financial distress.”
The hearing was called by CDFA Secretary Karen Ross to consider whether market conditions support short-term price adjustments to all classes of milk that would last no longer than six months.
Several proposals were offered at the December 21 hearing that would raise the price California dairymen get for their milk of around 0.75 cents to $1 per hundred weight.
After several rejections of pleas dairymen by Karen Ross in 2012 – some relief is expected this time in part because the hearing was called by Ms Ross herself.
California Milk Producers Council general manager Rob Vandenheuvel says he expects to hear the decision by the end of January with new prices set to go February 1. A CDFA posting suggests a decision by January 22.
Opportunity Knocking? Chinese Babies Short On Formula
California milk producers like Visalia-based California Dairies Inc are planning to increase production of baby formula exported to China in coming months. Domestic fluid milk consumption continues to drop and the industry must look overseas to clear supply. But opportunity knocks as can be seen from news stories like this reported January 3.
Australian supermarkets and pharmacies were running out of popular baby formula Thursday after unprecedented sales reportedly due to Chinese customers trying to secure supplies.
Nutricia, supplier of top-selling formula brand Karicare, said there had been a sudden surge in demand for its products which had seen stocks plummet and left shelves empty.
Major supermarket Coles said it was trying to arrange extra shipments of infant formula. Some pharmacies were rationing sales across brands to a few cans per customer.
Media reports said Chinese residents or tourists in Australia were buying formula in bulk and shipping it back to their native country for family or sometimes sale online.
“Chinese visitors buy as many cans as they can fit into their luggage to take back to China,” one manager of a pharmacy near a major international hotel in central Sydney told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Many Chinese people are suspicious of domestically produced milk following a major food safety scandal in 2008 in which six children died and 300,000 others fell ill after drinking milk tainted with the industrial chemical melamine.