Cattle Market Suffers as Corn Prices Rise
Jun 30th, 2008 | By Bill Bonner | Category: Gold MarketEditor’s Note: Daily Reckoning editor Bill Bonner thinks it’s time to get out of the cattle business – why bother with meat when corn prices are sky-high?
Cattle Prices Have Only Risen 1% This Year
By Bill Bonner
“Bill,” began a message from our farm manager in Argentina, “we are in the wrong business.”
Yes, we are in the cattle business – in Argentina, no less. Cattle prices have risen only 1% this year. South of the Rio Plata, the cattle business is worse. Farmers have been getting rid of cattle so they can plant corn, soybeans and wheat. Result: cattle prices have fallen. Often, it’s hard to find anyone who will even take the cows away. Why? Because buyers can’t get them to market, since the grain farmers have blocked the roads into Buenos Aires.
That’s the nice thing about being a grain farmer, you have time on your hands. You can hang around a roadblock… or go give your congressman a fright. Not so with dairymen and cattlemen. They’ve got to stay near their animals.
Yesterday, apparently, the blockades in Argentina were lifted… but we doubt we’ll see much pick up in the beef market.
Bill Bonner
The Daily Reckoning Australia
Source: Cattle Prices Have Risen Only 1% This Year
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Best-selling investment author Bill Bonner is the founder and president of Agora Publishing. Owner of both Fleet Street Publications and MoneyWeek magazine in the UK, he is also author of the free daily e-mail The Daily Reckoning and three best-selling books, Financial Reckoning Day: Surviving The Soft Depression of the 21st Century, Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis and Mobs, Messiahs and Markets..
