The reason they can is the law of supply and demand. The drought in the Midwest in 2011-2012 reduced herd levels to the lowest since 1951 (as of last year). Now many farmers are breeding more and selling less in order to build the herds back up.
Yeah? Well what about the price of potato chips?
didn’t the reduction to herds involve killing and burying the herds? Don’t know here am just asking. Were the herds killed because of low prices being offered and not placed on open market but instead killed and buried on site?
My wife and I retired in 2011, moved from Arizona to Florida and started raising Angus beef cattle to keep the taxes down on our acreage and maybe pay our high property taxes on our house. After four years we are still growing our herd through breeding.
Back in 2011, our cows would have brought a $1.00 or less at auction before the drought started driving prices up. Same drought that affected herds throughout the midwest, especially Texas. No water, no grass. No grass, no food. So you have to buy hay. But hay is expensive if you have to truck it in from places with wetter weather. If you can't feed your cows you have to destroy them or they die. Since we were just starting out, we only had a few cows and didn't feel the pinch too bad.
But the last two years things have turned in the other direction and it has been raining a lot, so there's plenty of grass and hay. Now we are up to 18 head. We just took our first two steers to auction a month ago and those two boys brought us a check for $2,800. They averaged over $3.00 a pound, over triple what the price was fours years ago.
We will butcher our first steer from our herd this fall and put him up in the freezer to eat. But until then, we can't afford the high price of beef in the market. We're on fixed incomes, Social Security. So we eat a lot out of our garden, fruit from our 18 fruit trees and eggs and chicken from our layers and fryers. Hamburger has been a luxury and steaks, forget it.
The prices of everything at the grocery store that makes up the basics of people's meals, are at all time records highs. But this Obama recovery is hummin' along just fine. Or so the b*stard tells us.