2021 Beef Outlook: New Challenges, New Opportunities
By Greg Henderson
Ag Web
Disruptions to the beef industry from the COVID-19 pandemic will likely linger into 2021, but the result may not be all bad. That’s the assessment of Don Close, senior animal protein analyst at Rabo AgriFinance.
“We are set up for an incredibly interesting, but challenging year,” Close told AgriTalk host Chip Flory Wednesday, Dec. 9. “We have a large inventory of cattle in place for the first and early second quarter (of 2021). But because of the contraction in cow inventory we’ve had for each of the previous two years, the calf crop going forward is smaller.”
Close said that lower inventory of calves from 2019 and 2020 will show up in on-feed inventories beginning in late-spring of 2021. That will result in some counter-seasonal prices for fed cattle.