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Moore: I’m bullish on cattle prices

The owner of one of the largest sale barns in the country says he’s still bullish on the cattle market. Jackie Moore with Joplin Regional Stockyards in Missouri says, “Because of sheer numbers, if they let supply and demand run the market, we’re fine.”

But, he says, it doesn’t mean the industry will see widespread heard expansion. “They’re going to have stop saying that beef’s too high and try to run the price of beef down,” he says. “If we’re going to build these cow numbers, these calves off these cows, they have to keep bringing something.”

He tells Brownfield producers are getting older, and it will take more than a love of the industry to bring the next generation back to the operation.  “We got to let them make some money,” he says.  “We can rebuild it, but we got to let this younger generation and even the older generation think we’re going to make some money before we even want to keep our children at home and let them do what we did our entire life.”

Moore says persistent drought conditions and rising input costs also create challenges in expanding the cattle herd.