Check our advice monitor at ProFarmer.com for updates to our marketing plan.
As Pro Farmer’s Spencer Langford highlighted in last week’s newsletter, resilient consumer demand for beef in the face of ever-rising prices is just as much a factor in an epic cattle rally as historically low cattle inventory figures.
Bloomberg, in a recent report, underlined how an insatiable demand for beef has led to consumers and meat purveyors getting more creative.
For example, that with pricey cuts like filet mignon feeling out of reach for many consumers, some restaurants are sourcing lower-grade cuts and tenderizing them through various methods, such as puncturing, adding saline or braising, Mark Bucher, co-owner of steak frites chain Medium Rare told Bloomberg. He noted that chefs are also making up steak names, like “the maestro’s steak” or “our house cut,” which may just be the center of a cheaper chuck roast tenderized by the kitchen.
Also, more top sirloin – a more budget-friendly cut – is making its way into fajitas and other sliced-steak dishes, the article said, while further down the scale, ground beef is appearing on more menus as meatballs or hamburgers, sometimes mixed with pork or chicken.
- Statistical note: Beef and veal prices were up 15% year over year in January, according to the most recent consumer price index reading. At the same time, USDA in its February WASDE report raised its projection of U.S. beef consumption to 59.5 pounds per person in 2026, up from its January estimate of 58.9 pounds and its 2025 estimate of 59.2 pounds.
Brazil’s DDG breakthrough: The first vessel of Brazilian dry distillers’ grain destined for China left port last week, loaded with 62,000 tons of DDGs, said crop consultant Michael Cordonnier, marking a major advance for Brazil’s export agenda.
DDG is a co-product of the dry-grind fuel ethanol production process. The shipment left the Brazilian port of Imbituba, Santa Catarina, last week.
China formally opened market access for Brazilian DDGS earlier this year. The operation would consolidate a new commercial front in animal feed between the two countries, according to S&P Global.
“All Brazilian DDGS will go to China, and that will open up more Asian homes for US DDGS,” one broker told S&P Global earlier this month, suggesting Brazilian supply could displace U.S. product in China, but create room for U.S. material in other regional markets. A second broker said: “There are more and more DDGS in the world as ethanol production grows globally, we’re already shipping it everywhere we can.”
- Participants said expanding production in Brazil adds to a global supply pool that is increasingly looking for export outlets, the S&P report said.
Still a safe haven, but watch out: The yield on the 10-year note fell Monday to 4.03%, its lowest of the year and near the April trade-crisis low around 3.99% (yields move opposite to price). The demand comes as stocks suffer amid growing fears of AI disruption as well as uncertainty around trade policy following the Supreme Court’s rejection of a key pillar of the Trump administration’s tariff strategy.
Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, observed in a note that over the last year, or 251 trading days, the 10-year note has printed a yield at or below Monday’s closing level in just 15 instances, or 6% of the time.
- “So much for the argument that Treasuries have lost their safe haven status, but we should also be careful what we wish for,” he wrote. “Lower long-term Treasury yields may be signaling that the US labor market will soon feel the full effect of AI-driven substitution of capital for labor. Claims that the classic 60/40 stock/bond portfolio is dead were clearly premature, but perhaps there is a new catalyst to consider for why this combination still works.”
UK farmers demand to keep chemicals: Britain’s farmers must be allowed to keep growing gene-edited crops and using plant protection products that are currently prohibited by the European Union if the U.K. strikes a new trade pact with the bloc, the president of the U.K.’s National Farmers Union said Tuesday, according to Reuters.
The U.K., which voted to leave the EU in 2016, is attempting to reset relations with Brussels.
“We mustn’t sacrifice our hard-won technological advances in gene editing, or our access to GB-approved plant protection products in order to reach a deal with the EU,” said NFU President Tom Bradshaw at the group’s annual conference.
- About 14 crop protection chemicals banned in the EU since Brexit remain permitted in Britain, according to Reuters, which noted that CropLife UK, whose members include pesticide makers, said in a report this year that losing crop protection tools could cost the farming sector between 500 million and 810 million pounds ($676 million to $1.1 billion) in the first year alone.
Don’t miss these Tuesday must-reads: