FRONT ROYAL, Va. — Family farmer David Foltz eyed bull calves and tracked prices at a cattle auction this week, relieved with figures that came out of auctioneer Gary Vance’s fast-moving mouth.
“Two weeks ago [prices] were down quite a bit. Things have picked up now,” he said at Virginia Livestock, a Front Royal-based company that auctions cattle each Thursday.
The U.S. Agriculture Department Dec. 23 reported a single case of mad cow disease in Washington state, the United States’ first. Formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, the disease fatally attacks the central nervous system of cattle and in rare instances afflicts humans who eat tissue from infected animals.
Foreign markets quickly banned American imports, and prices at auction houses fell immediately. Virginia Livestock saw figures for feeder cattle, younger animals that are sold to feedlots to be fattened up before slaughter, tumble from more than $90 per hundred pounds to the low $70 range at a Jan. 1 auction, said Hetty Thompson, one of the firm’s managers.
But a quick response by the government and industry helped maintain domestic consumer confidence in beef.
“Unless we get another outbreak, I think we will be OK,” said Mr. Foltz, who runs an operation in Luray, Va.
Prices at the auction had not completely returned to pre-mad-cow levels, but they were well above the short-lived low that started the year. Cattlemen are hopeful that the quick rebound will be sustainable.
“That is a real calf, fellows, he has got some meat on him,” Gary Vance, Virginia Livestock’s auctioneer, said of a 635-pound animal that was prodded around a half-circle dirt track for inspection.
Mr. Vance quickened his speech as bidding began, and the young bull eventually sold for $85.50 per hundred pounds.
The U.S. Agriculture Department this week said that the loss of major export markets would force 2004 cattle prices down to between $72 and $78 per hundred pounds, significantly lower than earlier estimates of $84 to $91.
Randall Updike, a marketing specialist for Virginia’s agriculture department, grades cattle quality and records prices from the auction. Low volume this time of year makes it difficult to get a handle on the overall market, but yesterday the outlook was good.
“The cattle market really came back,” he said.
Consumers would notice any fall in prices two to three months after auctions, said Ron Gustafson, a livestock analyst at the U.S. Agriculture Department in Washington. Prices for all uncooked beefsteaks rose slightly, to $5.57 per pound in December from $5.51 in November, USDA reported.
A limited supply of cattle — the entire U.S. herd has shrunk in the past seven years — a need to refill the supply line after a holiday lull and Americans’ appetite for choice cuts of beef have all helped prop up prices after an initial scare, Mr. Gustafson said.
“But I think prices will continue to move down,” he said.
Maintaining prices is important to regional producers.
“A lot of people are surprised to find that it is our number two [agricultural] commodity, second only to chickens,” said Elaine Lidholm, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Statewide cash receipts reached $322 million in 2002; and there were 682,000 head of beef cattle in the state as of Jan. 1, she said.
The state mostly produces feeder cattle — young animals that are sold to feedlots, often in Pennsylvania or Ohio, to be fattened and then slaughtered.
In Maryland, cash receipts were $67.5 million from calves and cattle in 2002, according to the state.
“The beef, cattle and calves, is not a huge part of our industry, but it is a very important part,” said Sue DuPont, a spokeswoman for Maryland’s agriculture department.
Most operations in Maryland are small, some as few as one or two head of cattle.
Dean Bryant, managing partner of Roseda Farms in Monkton, Md., runs one of the state’s larger operations with about 125 head of cattle.
It is a purebred Angus herd, slaughtered in Baltimore and eventually sold in and around Baltimore, Annapolis and parts of New Jersey.
“In our case [mad cow] may have increased interest in our products, because we are a local product and we verify the source [of the animal] back to the herd,” Mr. Bryant said.
“In general [mad cow disease] has lowered the price of cattle. But what we’ve seen is a lot of interest from consumers as far as information, a little more interest in people wanting to buy our beef,” he said.
Mr. Bryant’s cattle are slaughtered and packed at George G. Ruppersberger & Sons in Baltimore.
Bill Ruppersberger, company president, is still trying to gauge the effect of the mad cow case.
“I’m a very small operation, but we have not seen much of a drop in demand so far,” he said. “It pretty much depends on if any more of these animals are found. If we don’t find more … I don’t think it’s going to have a huge impact.”
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