– Dr. Andrew Griffith, Assistant Professor, Livestock Marketing Specialist, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Tennessee
Does anyone really know where we are in the cycle?
In the past week, there have been emails with peers, popular press articles and discussions with producers concerning the next cattle cycle. This revolves around when cattle prices will peak and decline for the next cycle.
Maybe spending time on this topic is important, but anyone who thinks they can predict the timing of this accurately is full of themselves. It is similar to meteorologists in that as a child they had a three-day forecast and now they have seven- and ten-day forecasts. They are no better at predicting three days out than they were 30 years ago. That may be an overstatement, but readers understand the point.
Cattle market participants cannot consistently predict what direction futures market prices will move each day, much less predict when cattle herd expansion and contraction will begin and end. This is not their fault, because financial, production, and climatic factors all influence these decisions. Thus, producers should focus on the now. There are enough worries for today so let tomorrow’s worries take care of themselves.