USDA Drops Data Set for U.S. Ranchers

With California Ag Today, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.

The National Ag Statistics Service (NASS) has now announced that there will be one fewer statistical report in the world of livestock. It is the July Cattle Report getting the axe. Will it matter?

Tanner Beymer, senior director of government affairs with the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, says this July report carries a lot of weight for the big picture…

“That’s especially critical during the phase of the cattle cycle that we're currently in, which is herd contraction. This has been very similar to the 2014 run in a lot of ways but in several other ways, it's been very different. We won't be able to compare and contrast the two and get an accurate picture of where we are at as an industry without that information that comes out in that July report.”

The July cattle report is one of only two per year the marketplace gets from NASS, so Beymer says it will have a big impact on the cattle industry, taking away one tool used to make better informed decisions.

As for the number of cattle here in California, USDA NASS numbers show the beef cow inventory at 665,000 as of January 1 with the dairy cow inventory at 1.715 million. This does not include the number of calves nor cattle on feed.