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Drought Agitates State Cattle Market

Posted on: Wednesday, 15 March 2006, 12:00 CST

By Jim Stafford, The Daily Oklahoman

Mar. 15--The issue that confronted cattle buyers and sellers at the Oklahoma National Stockyards auction Tuesday has been a concern for months: drought.

Weather certainly took precedence with cattle producers Tuesday over the nation's third case of mad cow disease.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed Monday that an Alabama cow had tested positive for the brain-wasting disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

However, there was little talk of the mad cow ramifications among a group of Oklahomans who have battled months of drought.

"Here in Oklahoma it has impacted us tremendously," said Jim Deberry, a representative with J&J Livestock Commission and Order Buying company.

"We've had a lot of cattle already sold in this area that would not have been sold otherwise; they were sold as much as 60 days ahead (of normal)."

As for the impact of the mad cow discovery, the effect was negligent, Deberry said. He walked over to a computer terminal on the first floor of the stockyards building and pointed to the prices it was flashing from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

"It's all up," he said, indicating the midmorning prices.

However, by Tuesday's market close, most futures contracts for live cattle showed modest declines of about 50 cents per hundred pounds of live weight. For example, the June contract closed at $78.55 per hundredweight, down 57.5 cents from Monday's close.

"There has never been any (disease-tainted meat) that has gotten into the food supply," Deberry said. "Not to downplay this thing from the standpoint of safety, I think the public deserves to have a safe food supply, and I think they are getting the safest in the world.

"It's very important to us; it's the No. 1 priority."

Tuesday's Oklahoma City auction featured only 750 head, down from last week's 1,004 and the 9,305 traded Monday. Prices were generally $1 lower for slaughter cows.

Watching the action from his seat above the auctions ring, a cattle seller who wanted to be identified only as "Jack" from south of Norman said the industry didn't need another mad cow crisis.

"Who knows what this will do," he said. "The dry weather is already killing us, and (mad cow) may drive it down. The weather is terrible, and I don't know how it's going to come out."

Auctioneer Greg Griffith said the furor over mad cow incidents has been overblown.

"It's kind of like a little boy who cried 'wolf,'" Griffth said. "I don't believe any of that has reached the food chain. It doesn't affect us like it used to."

Meanwhile, Oklahomans continue to battle the effect of a monthlong drought.

That has caused some cattle producers to take dramatic steps, said Scott Dewald, executive vice president of the Oklahoma Cattlemen's Association.

"Either they are selling off (cattle) or they are buying additional feed grains and hay supplies," Dewald said. "Ponds are drying up, and that is requiring them to build temporary watering systems or haul water, which is very inefficient.

"They are having to make myriad management decisions that impact their operations because of the drought, whether it's forages or water. About 45 percent of their budget is going to be forage and feeds."

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Daily Oklahoman

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Source: The Daily Oklahoman

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