After languishing for weeks at about $114 per hundredweight (cwt), the fed cattle market has sprung to life. Fed cattle prices hit $123-$124 in more Northern regions and closed the week at $121 in the Southern Plains.

Cody Easterday, owner of Easterday Ranches Inc., pled guilty to defrauding (Tyson) and an unnamed company (Company 1) out of more than $244 million by charging them under various agreements for the purported costs of purchasing and feeding hundreds of thousands of cattle that did not actually exist.

Beef exports have evolved significantly in recent years in a very dynamic environment of global politics and trade policies, direct and indirect impacts of animal disease outbreaks, and growing beef preferences and consumption.

The Biden administration submitted its discretionary funding request (DFR) for 2022 to Congress on April 9. The request outlines the president’s discretionary funding recommendations for several policy areas and provides “a strategy for reinvesting in the foundations of our country’s resilience and strength.”

Last year, several pieces of legislation were introduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives and Congress whose principal aim was to increase the level of negotiated cash trade.

As April arrives, the current drought situation looms larger, and potential impacts on cattle markets are increasing with each passing week.

Sens. Deb Fischer (R-Nebraska) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) recently introduced the Cattle Market Transparency Act of 2021 in the Senate. Fischer, a member of the Senate Ag Committee, first introduced this legislation in 2020.

The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) released its semiannual Cattle report on Jan. 29. The total number of cattle and calves on Jan. 1, 2021, was estimated at 93.6 million head, nearly 200,000 head lower than the previous year.

Randy Blach, CEO of CattleFax, shared an optimistic industry outlook with producers during the National Cattlemen’s Association 2021 Winter Reboot virtual event, held on Feb. 24.

In a recent online poll, Progressive Cattle asked readers to weigh in on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on their livestock buying decisions.