CASH live cattle prices declined by $19.33 per cwt live in November. But they recovered half that decline the week before last in a late trade that was as unexpected as it was welcome for cattle feeders. The inklings of a big rally occurred up north on the Thursday, and Friday saw that occur. Live prices averaged $221.71 per cwt, up $10.18 per cwt on the prior week, while dressed prices averaged $342.61 per cwt, up $13.23 per cwt. Prices last week had another huge rally, with most of the price advance starting on Wednesday up north. Prices there were $225-234 per cwt live or $350-355 per cwt dressed. Trade continued at these prices Thursday, which also saw trade develop in Kansas at $230 per cwt live. Texas reported no sales due to confidentiality.
Analysts last week expected the total harvest for the week to challenge 590,000 head. Packer margins have slipped back into the red, says Andrew Gottschalk, HedgersEdge.com. Marketable fed cattle supplies in the Corn Belt remain front-end loaded and an uptick in Southern Plains supplies may also be in the process of beginning to develop. The winter storm that impacted the upper Midwest may have allowed carcass weights to have attained their seasonal peak at the record high levels seen the week ended November 22 (weights in fact fell the following week). Beef cutout values may gain some further traction from holiday beef pricing by retailers and restaurants, says Gottschalk. Should this support develop, it may prove to be but a temporary fix. Prices for the Choice beef cutout continue to hover between daily price support and price resistance and are currently near the low end, he says.
Cutouts Continue to Decline
Boxed beef cutout values declined the week before last week. The comprehensive cutout averaged $366.40 per cwt, down $3.87 per cwt from the week before. The Choice cutout averaged $364.19, down $2.35 per cwt, while the Select cutout averaged $351.19 per cwt, down $0.83 per cwt. Formula-priced sales accounted for 56.7% of the total volume of 6615 loads. Spot market sales accounted for 32.1%, forward sales accounted for 11.2% and export sales accounted for 10.4%. The Choice cutout the first four days of last week declined by $3.09 per cwt to $358.11 per cwt while the Select cutout declined by $3.93 per cwt to $43.46 per cwt.
Meanwhile USDA last Tuesday lowered its estimates for live cattle prices through 2026, citing reduced slaughter plant capacity early next year and recent pricing data. Prices for cattle have surged amid a severe US cattle shortage, which has left meat processors bidding up prices to secure limited supplies, say reports. The situation has been exacerbated by an ongoing halt to Mexican cattle imports to prevent the spread of New World screwworm and by tariffs on Brazilian beef that were only recently lifted.
Fed steer prices are now forecast to average $235 per cwt in 2026, down 4.5% from USDA’s November estimate. Still, that would mark a 5% increase from the projected 2025 price, which USDA trimmed only slightly. Live cattle futures were little changed following the report. USDA also raised its 2026 outlook for beef imports to 5.45M lbs, up 10% from last month’s estimate, as the removal of tariffs on beef products is expected to boost shipments. This would also mark a year-over-year increase in beef imports, reversing prior expectations of a drop. The US has become more reliant on foreign supplies to meet resilient beef demand, say reports. As CBW reported in its November 24, 2025 issue, Trump lifted the 40% tariff on Brazilian beef, a move that is expected to eventually cool record prices for ground beef.
NEBRASKA FEEDERS ASSESS PLANT CLOSURE
CATTLE feeders in central Nebraska are assessing likely operational changes after Tyson Foods announced it will close its beef plant in Lexington on January 20. For feedyards that have long depended on the facility, the shift means new logistics, new marketing patterns and new strategies for sourcing and finishing cattle, says KNEB Radio. At Darr Feedlot, located just seven miles from the plant, longtime cattle feeder and incoming Nebraska Cattlemen president Craig Uden said his initial reaction was shock, followed quickly by a need to re-evaluate day-to-day operations. I was a little bit shocked, like everybody, he told KNEB’s Steve White. You never anticipate. The day after the announcement, he asked himself: what are we going to do and how are we going to start looking at this thing different? Uden said.
With Lexington no longer an option, Uden said the most immediate change will be how and when cattle are shipped. We are seven miles from the plant so we have to rethink. We’re going to have to ship, we’re going to have to load different times of the day. But despite the closure, the region will still have solid packer access, including Cargill and JBS, and Darr Feedlot expects to redirect more cattle to those plants. That also means maintaining consistency in the type and quality of cattle marketed, he said.
There are a lot of opportunities out there as he feeds high quality animals, so he wants to be able to still look at grid premiums and stuff like that, said Uden. He may have to look at some different management practices or look for different kinds of cattle that meet programs through some of the other packers. Uden noted that the broader cattle supply environment is already tight, with the US cow herd significantly smaller than it was several years ago. He also pointed out that carcass weights have risen, helping offset the smaller herd size. It was 33M beef cows, now it’s about 27.5M but only 1% or 2% less beef production, he said. His biggest concern is the impact on Lexington and its workforce. But even with the disruption, he remains confident the cattle sector and Lexington will adapt. Our operation will adjust and the community will too, he said.
CATTLE ON FEED FORECASTS
David Anderson, Texas A&M University: COF 98.4%, placed 90.0%, marketed 88.5%; Tyler Cozzens, Livestock Marketing Information Center: COF 98.0%, placed 90.5%, marketed 88.4%; Andrew Gottschalk, HedgersEdge.com: COF 97.3%, placed 84.4%, marketed 88.1%; Caleb Hurst, S&P Global Commodity Insights: COF 98.4%, placed 93.2%, marketed 88.5%; Rich Nelson, Allendale Inc: COF 98.8%, placed 96.0%, marketed 88.9%; Lori Porter, Allegiant Commodity Group: COF 98.6%, placed 94.1%, marketed 88.6%; Mike Sands, MBS Research: COF 98.5%, placed 93%, marketed 88%
NOV PLACEMENTS WERE LOWEST IN TEN YEARS
NOVEMBER feedlot placements and marketings were both the lowest in ten years, as this Friday’s Cattle on Feed (COF) report will show. Analysts’ average forecast for placements was 92.8% of a year ago while their average marketing forecast was 88.5%. November however had one less slaughter day than last year. The average December 1 COF total was 98.3% of a year ago. The well-established trend of smaller monthly feedlot placements continued in November, with the largest declines likely concentrated in the South amid the lack of feeder imports, says Mike Sands, MBS Research. Monthly feedlot placements have ranged 6-10% below a year earlier since last spring and November likely extended that pattern. But feedlot inventories remain large relative to placements, reflecting the slow marketing pace and the historically large volume of long-day cattle. Longer feeding regimes and heavier carcass weights are the new norm but may have been carried to an extreme in recent weeks. The resulting large front-end supply is a drag on prices in some areas, he says. But aside from the supply, the small placements of recent months suggest much smaller fed cattle supplies in the months ahead. Estimated feedlot placements this year are about 1.4M head smaller than last year and July-December placements are about 800,000 head smaller. Projected feedlot inventories near 11.8M head are slightly larger than a month earlier and likely will establish the seasonal peak, followed by seasonal declines into next summer. The December feedlot count may stand as the largest feedlot inventory for some time, he says.
TRUMP ANNOUNCES $12B BILLION FARM BAILOUT
PRESIDENT Donald Trump announces a $12 billion farm aid package, a boost to farmers who have struggled to sell their crops while getting hit by rising costs after the president raised tariffs on China as part of a broader trade war. Trump unveiled the plan last Monday at a White House roundtable with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, lawmakers from farm states and farmers who thanked him for the help. Rollins put the immediate value of the program at $11 billion, money that the White House said will offer one-time payments to row-crop farmers. Another $1 billion will be put aside for specialty crops as the administration works to better understand the circumstances for those farmers. The aid will move by the end of February, she said.
The administration looked at how farmers were hurt and to what extent they were hurt, said Trump, explaining how the administration came up with the size of the package. Trump said the money for the program will come from tariff revenue. Ironically, the bailout is largely because of tariffs that Trump imposed on a wide range of Chinese exports, which resulted in China imposing its own tariffs on US. exports of corn, soybeans and other U.S. agricultural exports, including beef and pork.
USDA later this month will use a formula that estimates production costs to come up with a per acre payment for each type of crop. Payments will be capped at $155,000 per farm or person and only entities that make less than $900,000 a year will be eligible for aid. This will limit payments to large farms, which was a criticism of farm aid Trump delivered in his first term, says the Associated Press (AP). Farmers have backed Trump politically but his aggressive trade policies and frequently changing tariff rates have come under increasing scrutiny because of the impact on the agricultural sector and because of broader consumer worries, says AP.
China Purchases Have Been Slow
Soybeans and sorghum were hit the hardest by Trump’s trade dispute with China because more than half those crops are exported each year, with most of the harvest going to China, says AP. In October, after Trump met Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea, the White House said Beijing had promised to buy at least 12M metric tons of US soybeans by the end of the calendar year, plus 25M metric tons a year in each of the next three years. China is the world’s largest buyer of soybeans. But in recent years, it has increasingly been shifting its purchases over to Brazil and other South American countries, says AP.
China has purchased more than 2.8M metric tons of soybeans since Trump announced the agreement at the end of October. That’s only about one quarter of what administration officials said China had promised. But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said China is on track to meet its goal by the end of February, which is two months later than the White House originally promised. The size of the $12 billion aid package is roughly the value of total U.S. soybean exports to China in 2024 and half the total exports of U.S. farm goods to China in 2024.
Farmers appreciate the aid package but they say it’s likely only a down payment on what is needed, says AP. Government aid doesn’t solve the fundamental problems of soaring costs and uncertain markets. During Trump’s first term, he gave farmers more than $22 billion in aid payments in 2019 at the start of his trade war with China and nearly $46 billion in 2020, although that year also included aid related to the COVID pandemic.
Farmers say they want to make a profit off selling their crops, not rely on government aid to survive, says AP. That’s a start but I think we need to be looking for some avenues to find other funding opportunities and we need to get our markets going. That’s where we want to be able to make a living from, said Caleb Ragland, a Kentucky farmer who serves as president of the American Soybean Assn. Most at risk are younger farmers and those who rent instead of owning their land because they don’t have much ability to borrow against the equity in their farms, says AP. If farmers can’t make ends meet this year, there could be additional consolidation in the industry, with giant industrial farms getting bigger and the number of smaller family farmers continuing to shrink, says AP.
Iowa farmer Robb Ewoldt is in a difficult position because he only owns 160 of the 2,000 acres he farms, says AP. So he says he’s selling some of his equipment that’s not essential and looking into whether he can pick up some overnight trucking jobs to help raise some cash. It is to the point where I don’t want to saddle my kid with the kind of stress that my wife and I are under right now, Ewoldt told AP. However, fourth-generation Minnesota farmer Darin Johnson said he’s optimistic that most farmers will be able to endure this latest trade war. A lot of farms are pretty well-established and they have the equity to be able to still keep borrowing money to get through tougher times like this, he said.
TRUMP ORDERS FOOD INVESTIGATION
PRESIDENT Donald Trump orders a federal investigation into U.S. food-related industries and foreign-controlled companies for potential price fixing as the administration faces pressure to address rising grocery costs. Trump has directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to establish task forces and determine the extent of anticompetitive behavior within food supply chains, particularly among companies owned by foreign entities. The executive order empowers the DOJ and the FTC to bring enforcement actions against companies and propose new regulatory approaches. The Office of the Attorney General could also commence criminal proceedings, including grand jury investigations, upon evidence of collusion.
Trump said his administration will act to determine whether anti-competitive behavior, especially by foreign-controlled companies, increases the cost of living for Americans and address any associated national security threats to food supply chains. Another section addresses how the DOJ would investigate food-related industries for federal law violations, while the FTC would examine potential unfair competition, each within their respective areas of expertise, to determine whether anti-competitive behavior exists in the US food supply chain. Trump last month called on the DOJ to investigate beef prices and made accusations that meat companies are raising prices. Retail beef prices reached record highs in 2025 and are expected to remain elevated into 2026. That’s partly because US cattle herds dropped to their lowest inventory levels since 1951.
Administration Is Under Pressure
The Trump administration is under mounting pressure to address sky-high food costs, which have consumers paying 32% more per month on average for groceries compared to 2019, according to the Urban Institute. In the executive order, Trump called out meat processing, seed, fertilizer and equipment companies as having “vulnerabilities to price fixing and other anti-competitive practices.” Anticompetitive behavior from foreign-controlled corporations in particular threatens the stability and affordability of America’s food supply, he said. Two major meatpackers have ties to other countries: Brazil-based beef giant JBS and pork producer Smithfield Foods, which is owned by China’s WH Group. Earlier this year, WH Group spun off Smithfield’s North American operations amid concerns around China’s influence over the US agricultural industry.
The Trump administration is refocusing its attention on meat processors as beef costs shoot to record highs, says the website Grocery Dive. The president recently walked back food tariffs on items such as Brazilian beef and coffee in an attempt to bring down costs. Groups representing meat processors say they aren’t to blame for the high prices and are hemorrhaging profits due to an ongoing cattle shortage, says Grocery Dive.
Tyson Foods recently disclosed plans to lay off more than 4000 workers and close one of its largest beef processing plants as it struggles with supply constraints, notes Grocery Dive. Despite high consumer prices for beef, beef packers have been losing money because the price of cattle is at record highs, says Julie Anna Potts, president and CEO of the Meat Institute, which represents processors. For more than a year, beef packers have been operating at a loss due to a tight cattle supply and strong demand, she says.