Cattle feeders are finding a little relief these days with feeder cattle prices much lower than a year ago. All classes of feeder cattle are down nearly $20/ cwt., which should give cattle feeders a chance to earn back some of their equity that has been lost over the past year.

Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling (mCOOL) has been a contentious issue in the past and will continue to be contentious. The mandatory labeling law went into effect in 2009 and was a product of the 2002 farm bill. It took a lot of arm twisting to get Congress to.

This sequester situation sure has to make one think about having faith in government. We all know that the federal government has been on a spending spree since President Obama took office four years ago. The thought of them being forced to cut 2.4 percent out of their 3.

Fewer people are buying beef and even with smaller fed cattle supplies, the market isn’t responding to lower prices. The beef cutout value toyed around with $2 beef over the holidays but has been in a tail spin since the New Year; the beef cutout was CROW.

Last week’s cattle industry convention held in Tampa, FL, was, for the most part, uneventful, and I suppose the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association prefers it that way after years of arguing over the checkoff and governance issues. There was a new committee structure in place that seemed to produce CROW.

The live cattle market regained all the losses that were realized two weeks ago after Cargill announced the closing of their Plainview, TX, beef plant. The market has made nearly a full recovery. I’ll admit, it was a bizarre day at the CME when the news came about.

Beef sales for 2013 have started off with a big thud; consumer demand is fading in the shadow of less expensive pork and poultry. Competing with those meats in the grocery store will be a big challenge for the beef industry this year. Most market watchers were looking for the beef cutout values to get much closer to $2 by now.

I can feel it coming. That word sustainability is coming around again and from what I can see, it may be getting more political, driving food policy in the U.S. Last week, I stumbled upon an article from an Israeli university that was promoted by Israel’s green party.

are currently very nice premiums for feeder cattle and live cattle on the futures markets. August feeders are at $163.50 and the February live cattle contract is at $133.70, with April at $137.10. The futures markets are offering good hedges and producers ought to take a look at locking down CROW.

The so called fiscal cliff is set to occur early this week and it doesn’t appear that our leaders in Washington, D.C., are too concerned about the issue. There was a little noise made last Thursday. But it’s becoming apparent that we’ll take that ride over the cliff and it is probably CROW.