STILLWATER, Okla. – While many in the U.S. cattle industry are looking at current high beef cattle prices and wondering if and when the bubble will burst, market factors seem to indicate that a sudden and sharp fall is not likely to be forthcoming.
“The recent pullback in prices is not unexpected, but beef prices will more than likely push beyond the $108 of a few weeks ago as the cattle market’s traditional springtime strength factors in,” said Derrell Peel, Oklahoma State University Cooperative Extension livestock marketing specialist.
Peel believes that 2011 will be the year when the U.S. cattle industry discovers just how much demand for beef products exists amongst consumers.
“Beef demand in the retail marketplace is going to be the major limiting factor as to how high cattle prices can go,” he said. “It’s going to be what consumers can and are willing to absorb in terms of higher prices for meat. What is going to happen in 2011, more so than the past couple of years, is that the beef industry will be passing the impacts of what we’ve been building toward on to the consumer.”
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