Analysis of current cattle cycle, Part 1

摘要

A fairly strong argument can be made that the cattle cycle has now returned to the cattle industry. BSE in 2003 and then ethanol in 2007 really upset the cattle industry. Bring in the droughts of 2002 and 2006, and the cattle cycle was basically destroyed.However, during the last decade or so, the cattle cycle has returned. Remember, the cattle cycle and the beef price cycle are related.To help sort all that out, I'll do a series of articles and will devote the first two Market Adviser columns in this series to a detailed economic analysis of the beef cow enterprise for the first nine years of the current cycle.The first six years of this analysis cover the upward portion of the current beef price cycle; the last three years in this discussion cover the beginning of the downward portion of the current beef price cycle. There could be one or two more years of the downward portion of the current beef price cycle, and then it is projected to start all over again.