Probably. lol.

oklaunion said:

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Eat More Lamb.

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Hell yes. The lamb t-bones at HEB are great for a weeknight meal.

gonemaroon said:

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So if you are Trump do you import beef from Argentina to offset price?

Price needs to be stable that is one thing that needs to occur.

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$8/lb for ground beef?

Try American lamb. It's usually grain finished and has a "beefier" flavor.

Teslag said:

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Try American lamb. It's usually grain finished and has a "beefier" flavor.

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You don't understand. When I was young, my grandparents raised sheep. They were not only stupid but smelly, especially during warm weather from the lanolin in their fur.

I gag if I even smell lamb or mutton cooking.

aggiehawg said:

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Teslag said:

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Try American lamb. It's usually grain finished and has a "beefier" flavor.

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You don't understand. When I was young, my grandparents raised sheep. They were not only stupid but smelly, especially during warm weather from the lanolin in their fur.

I gag if I even smell lamb or mutton cooking.

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Same here. I tried both and immediately regretted it by the smell alone. I don't even know what they tasted like because I ordered something else and just swallowed (no pun intended) the price of the lamb plate.

No Spin Ag said:

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aggiehawg said:

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Teslag said:

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Try American lamb. It's usually grain finished and has a "beefier" flavor.

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You don't understand. When I was young, my grandparents raised sheep. They were not only stupid but smelly, especially during warm weather from the lanolin in their fur.

I gag if I even smell lamb or mutton cooking.

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Same here. I tried both and immediately regretted it by the smell alone. I don't even know what they tasted like because I ordered something else and just swallowed (no pun intended) the price of the lamb plate.

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My first husband loved lamb stew. The subject never really came up because I didn't even know he did. I came home from work one day and he was so proud that he had gotten home early and was making lamb stew. When the smell hit me, I just covered my mouth and ran to the bathroom. He had to open the windows and doors before I could even come back to the kitchen area.

That is the only food that causes that reaction in me. I can think something smells bad but I don't retch immediately.

ETA: I love sushi and even have had Rocky Mountain Oysters with zero issues.

aggiehawg said:

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Teslag said:

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Try American lamb. It's usually grain finished and has a "beefier" flavor.

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You don't understand. When I was young, my grandparents raised sheep. They were not only stupid but smelly, especially during warm weather from the lanolin in their fur.

I gag if I even smell lamb or mutton cooking.

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The hair sheep of today don't even come close to those wool sheep of yesteryear. Get some American Lamb rib chops. They don't smell bad and are quite mild in flavor, enough so that a bit of your favorite meat seasoning might change your mind. Just don't overcook it.

1981 Monte Carlo said:

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Psycho Bunny said:

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If half of the crappy BBQ restaurants in Texas would close, beef prices would come down.

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The HEB near us in Bridgeland has a BBQ restaurant inside the main entrance and their fatty brisket has been freakin nails every single time. I have been blown away. I'd put it up there with Truth BBQ, I don't care what anyone says.

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The one in Kingwood is great also, including the sides and desserts. They now have smoked chicken halves also.

gonemaroon said:

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So if you are Trump do you import beef from Argentina to offset price?

Price needs to be stable that is one thing that needs to occur.

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What other type of animal meat do you like mixed in with your beef hamburger meat?

And prices are stable. High but stable.

1981 Monte Carlo said:

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Their crawfish has been on point too both times we've tried...much better than the Tuckerton location from my experience.

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I've been wondering about that at my local HEB. The dude cooking looks like he wouldn't know what he's doing.

SunrayAg said:

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It's not ever going to be fixed.

Every time a building goes up, a lot gets paved, or a road gets built, land goes out of production that is never coming back. Throw in solar farms so the suburbanites can pretend they are getting green energy… land out of production forever. Throw in data centers so losers can have ai girlfriends… land out of production forever.

The acres of agricultural land go down every year, and the mouths to feed go up every year.

Now throw in generational inheritance. Great grandpa had 300 acres he ran cows on. Divided among his kids, who divided among their kids, who divided among their kids. Now everyone has 7 or 8 acres and wants to build a retirement cabin there. Not enough to run a herd.

That is if they didn't sell out to the unscrupulous land developers who started sending offers the second grandpa passed away.

My family has been running cattle for generations. I don't know that we have ever made money doing it. It's just what we do.

Our cows are the descendants of my grandpa's cows. We change bulls every now and then, and sell some old cows and keep some young heifers every year.

A few years ago my mom paid $150 a roll for hay hauled in from Mississippi. (We feed 5 rolls a week in the winter.) Not because of profit. Because she wanted to keep my dad's herd. Another drought year recently we started feeding hay in August. Several around us had to sell their whole herds at the bottom because their water dried up. At that point it doesn't matter how much hay you hauled in. You're done.

How do you come back from that? Buy heifers at all time high prices, knowing that the point of growing herds is to drive the price down? You better just want to be in the cattle business at that point, because profit is going to be hard to find.

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I regret that I have but one star to give. This is spot on, and I don't think beef prices will ever come back down until demand craters. We aren't going to fix the supply side problem any time soon, and by the time we do, the US herd will begin to be majority owned by corporations (likely the meat industry) and they'll just ratchet up margins instead of it actually lowering the price for the consumer who will be used to it by then if they don't abandon beef.

This is different than the herd shortage of the 50s and the 2010s because of the average age of the US cattle rancher and the land use / valuation issues described in the quoted post.

Color me a little suspect that land use is meaningfully driving prices up, especially solar farms and data centers. Perhaps marginally so, but drought and screw worm seem more likely culprits.

Regardless, how much land is too much for things other than ranching? Should we not want the land to go it's highest and best use as a society? You can argue what that is, but clearly people find it to be more valuable en masse as suburban tract homes than a place to raise cattle. I agree it might be an unfortunate story in the long run, but family ranches getting split up and sold are the result of willing buyers AND sellers.

12thAngryMan said:

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Color me a little suspect that land use is meaningfully driving prices up, especially solar farms and data centers. Perhaps marginally so, but drought and screw worm seem more likely culprits.

Regardless, how much land is too much for things other than ranching? Should we not want the land to go it's highest and best use as a society? You can argue what that is, but clearly people find it to be more valuable en masse as suburban tract homes than a place to raise cattle. I agree it might be an unfortunate story in the long run, but family ranches getting split up and sold are the result of willing buyers AND sellers.

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You missed the point. It's not that land use is directly affecting prices. It's that supply side issues aren't going away and this specific market is about to undergo a generational change that will forever change the industry from what it has been for the last 50-100 years.

The resulting change will not be trivial and this is also not a surprise. The age of the average rancher has been a known problem for decades. This is a case of several significant headwinds crashing together simultaneously. It won't end in a harmonious return to status quo.

Even drought relief will only provide a temporary easing of the issue. The bigger problem is still right in front of us and isn't going away.

Quote:

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Should we not want the land to go it's highest and best use as a society?

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I think producing food is a high use.

gonemaroon said:

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So what resolves the cattle market long-term? I feel like it's very risky buying cattle at the all time highs to feed out. I am unsure how the cow calf operations work or how long they would take to recover in herd populations? I looks like we did recover after the mega droughts of the early 2010's.

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Change regulations that allow smaller processing operations to be established. This allows more options in cow/calf operators to raise and slaughter their own cattle for sale. This also makes it easier to build competitors to the Cargill's of the world.

I would color out of touch with what is occurring and has been for years with regards to loss of productive ag land.

Your point about willing buyers and sellers has merit, except that the buyers are subsidized by federal and state subsidies and actions of the federal reserve. Meanwhile ag subsidies appear to be designed to repay banks and vendors and keeping just enough people solvent to continue working on farms. US ag policy lacks any winning strategic direction - why do we continue to subsidize raw material production of cotton for value adding textile manufacturers that Wall Street shipped overseas? Why produce ethanol - with us farmland after becoming the largest oil producing nation in the world thanks to the shale revolution? Why continue to produce massive surpluses of corn and sorghum for export when the #1 buyer (China) paid Brazil to burn down the Amazon rain forest to create arable land to replace US supplies and is now dumping US treasuries because they no longer need the for our ag products? The answer to all of those questions is that Americans have been sold out by politicians in DC and the federal reserve.

The current and future results of the np loss of productive farm land and strategic ag policy will be increasing food costs, lower quality food, and eventually shortages.

The saddest part of that undercover video is that those people caught on camera...their life and business probably just became a lot harder. For saying stuff that really isn't any secret or big "expose". The big 4 packers have owned the leverage in the Beef Industry for the better part of 50+ years now.
How did we get there? Increased regulations, unions and more recently our willingness to allow foreign-owned money (whether through corruption or state-owned entity influence) to buy up our food-supply chain. You can thank politicians for that. But we have allowed them (the politicians) to do that.
We used to have more local/regional meat packing. The increase in COP due to regulations and unions/labor created a scenario where they were no longer sustainable. So we got consolidation into 4 major packers that control 85% of the segment.

Like many here have said, the current dynamics of the beef market are heavily driven by supply/demand. The cattle production/supply cycle is also driven that way. Consumer demand (health-diet fads/trends, spendable income, etc) and mother nature are the two biggest factors that influence that production/supply cycle. And have been for a very long time. Add in some urban-sprawl and more mouths to feed and you quickly understand the supply/demand structure.
The cattle cycle has historically also been fairly predictable. That's why a producer and banker/lender can have a fairly good relationship.

The fundamentals of that supply cycle were all set to shift back to some better prices for the producer and the beginning of another expansion phase.... then Covid hits. We went from a fairly predictable marketplace, to chaos. Massive supply chain disruptions, etc. Everyone knows the story. In the beef supply chain though, since the packers owned the market leverage they used that to their advantage. They were aided by poor policies established by our govt (federal and state). Trump 45 has some ownership in this. Allowing Fauci and Brix to dictate those policies at the end of his term where a huge mistake. Those policies allowed the packers to use covid-driven labor disruptions to manipulate the supply chain. Biden's admin just poured copious amounts of fuel on the fire. Panic buying forced an increase in beef (meat) prices, and the packers kept beef supply down so the price stayed up. At the same time, used the "labor disruptions" to limit processing, forcing cattle that were ready to slaughter, to stay in the feedlot an extra, 2, 4, 6 , 8+ weeks. This depressed live cattle prices that got pushed all the way back to the producer. Meanwhile the packer was profiting $600-1000/hd on every animal they knocked. I am sure their shareholders appreciated this.

Keep in mind, the producer should have been finally seeing some profitable times given the fundamentals of the market just before Covid, however, now they were essentially forced into more years of losses. And even more significant losses than necessary and some drought/high feed prices to contend with. This led to an even greater contraction of the US herd at a time when it should have been expanding. Leading to where we are today, with the smallest US Beef cattle herd since 1951.

We get past 2022 and things start to settle back in place (droughts withstanding). And by 2023 the live cattle market starts to recover. But the producer still has a lot more debt to now pay-off. 2025 probably marks the first year a lot of producers were finally able to get past that debt and put some money away. It is really only then that they can consider expanding again. But because covid caused the issues it did, the recovery of prices on the live side...were quick. Almost too fast. Now making the thought of expansion (cost of buying replacement females, or the opportunity-cost of raising your own) pretty difficult to swallow. Very much in-line with what SunrayAg stated....
You're in your 70s-80s, grinded it out in this industry you love your whole life. Your kids saw the grind and not a lot of return, and don't want any part of it. There is no-one there to take the family operation over. Cattle prices are at an all-time high. Sounds like a darn good time to cash-out and enjoy the rest of the life you have.

I'm not ignoring the screworm deal in Mexico. It has most definitely played a role in the supply-glut. But if the border opened tomorrow, those numbers don't automatically come back. That dynamic has also shifted. I doubt it is the US side forcing the border to stay closed. I think there are some good protocols in place. But the Mexican meat packing industry has seen massive expansion in the past year+. They've had a captive supply and can make a lot of money selling meat to their neighbors to the North who are having a shortage. We can speculate who is helping to finance their industry expansion down there.....you probably catch the drift.
They've made enough $$ to become more competitive with the local producer in price, should the border open. And the longer the border stays closed, the more fear-based negotiations can take place causing the local producer in Mexico to engage in long-term supply contracts with the packers down there.

Today the US packers are losing money on just about every head they knock. Not to the same tune that they were profiting during covid, but they are still in the red. Shareholders won't tolerate that very long. Packing capacity is much higher than supply. So we are seeing some plants shutter or cut shifts. We'll see what happens with JBS Greely in the next few days. As capacity decreases and gets more in-line with supply, prices will settle.
But...the damage may already be done for them. They may have got too greedy during covid and that upset more than just the producer. I think we are going to see a new leverage shift in the beef supply chain. It will shift back to the person that owns the cattle. That shift may already be starting, we just don't recognize it yet.

However, with a lot of producers "cashing-out"...we probably witness consolidation on the live side now, just like we did with the packing segment some 50+ years ago....

Sorry, TLDR, I understand.

Tony Franklins Other Shoe said:

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1981 Monte Carlo said:

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Their crawfish has been on point too both times we've tried...much better than the Tuckerton location from my experience.

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I've been wondering about that at my local HEB. The dude cooking looks like he wouldn't know what he's doing.

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Their crawfish is ass, now if you don't regularly eat crawfish, either your own, or cooked at one of the many top notch places from houston down through SE TX, and all the way through la, then you might think they are good, but they are ass! The only seasoning they have is what is put on bugs post boil.

HTownAg98 said:

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oklaunion said:

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Eat More Lamb.

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Hell yes. The lamb t-bones at HEB are great for a weeknight meal.

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Chops, they are lamb chops, and if you have them prepared right they are damn good. But goat is better when barbecued outside over a mesquite coal fire.

aggiehawg said:

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That is the only food that causes that reaction in me. I can think something smells bad but I don't retch immediately.

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Ever tried lutefisk?

Several years ago, my younger brother and his family were hosting an exchange student from New Zealand. One weekend toward the end of his stay, he cooked lamb for the community. I wasn't around here at the time, but those that were and ate it said that it was amazingly good.

They just invested $50 million in it last year. Are you anticipating JBS Greeley might scale back/close the Denver plant, or face a strike?

Yes. A strike

rab79 said:

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HTownAg98 said:

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oklaunion said:

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Eat More Lamb.

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Hell yes. The lamb t-bones at HEB are great for a weeknight meal.

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Chops, they are lamb chops, and if you have them prepared right they are damn good. But goat is better when barbecued outside over a mesquite coal fire.

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Technically, they are lamb loin chops. If you just say "lamb chops" people are going to think of rib chops, which are good in their own right. But the loin chops are way better.

Teslag said:

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Drought. The main reason is drought. Sometimes nature just wins.

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Not for this guy....no rain and yet they have plenty of food....

I know where that place is. They managed to get some timely rains this summer that others didn't. But the point of the video is a good one: pasture rotation and letting them rest and recuperate is a very beneficial practice. The place my dad manages is still hanging onto their cows because they still have some dry grass, and with feed being cheaper, they can make it work financially. But if they don't get some good spring rains, the pastures are going to look like the surface of the moon real quick.

https://www.beefmagazine.com/farm-business-management/lubbock-feeders-set-to-close

https://www.beefmagazine.com/market-news/what-tyson-beef-plant-closure-means-for-cattle-producers

https://abc7amarillo.com/news/local/tyson-laying-off-1761-employees-at-amarillo-plant-to-historically-low-cattle-numbers-beef-business-lose-600-million-dollars-job-cuts

Everything is just the market trying to hit equilibrium. Supply has to match demand or vice versa. The above shows that the supply isn't there nor is the demand there.

Like I've said in previous Posts "If the prices of beef keep climbing, it's going to price it's self out of the market and then there won't be any demand. When I look at the meat section at Walmart, two 16oz choice ribeye's are pushing $45. There's a lot of people struggling to put food on the table right now and they aren't walking into Walmart to buy $22 steaks and $5 a pound ground beef in my opinion.
Beef is quickly becoming a luxury good."

1981 Monte Carlo said:

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Psycho Bunny said:

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If half of the crappy BBQ restaurants in Texas would close, beef prices would come down.

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The HEB near us in Bridgeland has a BBQ restaurant inside the main entrance and their fatty brisket has been freakin nails every single time. I have been blown away. I'd put it up there with Truth BBQ, I don't care what anyone says.

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Where in Bridgeland? I live down 99 off of Fry Road. I may have to try it. I go to Dosher's in Fulshear for BBQ.

We have conflicting reports on this thread of an oversupply of meat-packing capacity and an undersupply of production/cattle. Some of the latter can be explained by drought but I believe it is more likely related to the Biden policies/BLM rules that took acreage out of production for ranchers.

I'm not an "Ag" Aggie so I don't know for sure but I still think the policies before Trump was sworn back in very adversely impacted cattle production/supply, outside of the current Mexican screw worm issues, or demographic problems that are very real for ranchers.

nortex97 said:

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We have conflicting reports on this thread of an oversupply of meat-packing capacity and an undersupply of production/cattle. Some of the latter can be explained by drought but I believe it is more likely related to the Biden policies/BLM rules that took acreage out of production for ranchers.

I'm not an "Ag" Aggie so I don't know for sure but I still think the policies before Trump was sworn back in very adversely impacted cattle production/supply, outside of the current Mexican screw worm issues, or demographic problems that are very real for ranchers.

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The BLM pays growers not to plant. Sometimes a good thing and sometimes not. I have friends that both ranch and grow crops. Oil and Gas has helped some of them along with the wind turbines in south Texas. Offsets a little. Both are hard lives to live, that's for sure.

Quote:

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The BLM pays growers not to plant.

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???????????????

nu awlins ag said:

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1981 Monte Carlo said:

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Psycho Bunny said:

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If half of the crappy BBQ restaurants in Texas would close, beef prices would come down.

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The HEB near us in Bridgeland has a BBQ restaurant inside the main entrance and their fatty brisket has been freakin nails every single time. I have been blown away. I'd put it up there with Truth BBQ, I don't care what anyone says.

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Where in Bridgeland? I live down 99 off of Fry Road. I may have to try it. I go to Dosher's in Fulshear for BBQ.

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On Bridgeland Creek Parkway just inside of 99. Disclaimer, I have ony been twice and only had the fatty brisket...haven't tried ribs or sausage or anything.

Usually even with top notch brisket, I try a few bites with some sauce. I didn't even mess around with that on this stuff.

CanyonAg77 said:

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Quote:

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The BLM pays growers not to plant.

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???????????????

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Bureau of Land Management? They can lease land, right? So just refuse to lease the land? It is confusing.

aggiehawg said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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Quote:

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The BLM pays growers not to plant.

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???????????????

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Bureau of Land Management? They can lease land, right? So just refuse to lease the land? It is confusing.

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I know who BLM is. I just don't know of anyone growing crops on BLM land