Latest / CattleUSA Daily / 223: The Cattle Market Is Up, but Beef Demand Isn’t: Dan’s Rant the Industry Needs to Hear

Transcript

223: The Cattle Market Is Up, but Beef Demand Isn’t: Dan’s Rant the Industry Needs to Hear · CattleUSA Daily

0:00
In today's market episode with Dan Gearhold, we are going over
0:03
everything that we have seen in the cattle markets, the grain
0:06
markets and everything else over the past week.
0:08
And then Dan opens up a candid conversation about an experience
0:12
that he recently had as far as beef goes and as far as beef
0:16
goes with our consumer population to band everything
0:19
else that goes along with that. And Dan just share some really
0:23
candid thoughts that he has about inner turmoil within the
0:26
cattle industry and then how we need to be pushing beef to to
0:30
our consumers as well. Before we hop into this episode
0:33
with Dan, if you are watching on YouTube, if you could take a
0:35
second to make sure you subscribe to our channel and
0:38
like this episode. And if you're listening on any
0:40
of our other podcast platforms, make sure you're following the
0:42
show and go take a second to write and review it as well.
0:45
We appreciate all the love here on the team.
0:48
And guys, I cannot believe we have almost been together doing
0:51
these five days a week for almost a year now.
0:54
So thank you for being here. Thank you for growing with us.
0:57
And without further ado, let's go ahead and hop into this
1:00
podcast episode with Dan. Welcome to the Cattle USA Daily
1:06
podcast, your go to source for the latest livestock markets,
1:10
industry insights and the updates shaping agriculture
1:13
today. I'm your host, Lauren Moylan, a
1:15
passionate advocate for agriculture here to keep you
1:18
informed and connected. Now let's dive into today's
1:21
episode. Dan, welcome back to the
1:30
podcast. How is life in Iowa?
1:34
That's great. Warmed up.
1:35
We're in the process of melting snow and turning it into the ice
1:39
at night. So life is great.
1:40
Yeah. The joys.
1:42
Oh, the joys. It has luckily just warmed up
1:45
here in Kansas. We didn't have any snow to melt
1:47
into ice, which I guess you can say, excuse me, I guess you can
1:50
say it's like a catch 22 because we also need the moisture.
1:54
So I mean. Yeah, no, it's from what I
1:57
understand, Kansas, western Nebraska, the winter.
2:02
It's been a good winter so far. It's been a warm winter, which
2:05
is so weird. Like high today is 56.
2:09
It was barely below freezing today.
2:11
Sunny. Yeah, I was.
2:14
So I signed up for 1/2 marathon in April and tentatively, I
2:18
know, I know you can, that's fine.
2:20
Tentatively, I was maybe going to do AK or a 10K on New Year's
2:25
Day. We have one here in Manhattan
2:27
and I put it on my calendar, but I was like, it's totally depends
2:29
on the weather. Like if it's cold, I'm not doing
2:31
it. I can promise you that.
2:33
And I just looked at the forecast for the first of the
2:37
year and it's supposed to be like a high 55 that day.
2:39
And I was like, damn it, that means I should probably go do
2:43
that, that Dang 5K or 10K that day to try and get myself into
2:48
some race shape. But I don't know.
2:50
We'll we'll see if I follow through on that.
2:53
Come on, it'll be all right. Just eat a big steak the night
2:56
before you'll you'll be able to do it no problem.
2:59
Exactly, exactly. Well, on that note, Dan, what is
3:03
what is happening in the markets this week?
3:08
Typical holiday trade between Thanksgiving, new year it it
3:13
doesn't really get wild or crazy by any means.
3:16
Oh, we've had we had an exciting last week, you know, cash
3:20
jumping 6-7 bucks like it did in a lot of places.
3:23
That was cool. You know the expectation cash is
3:26
going to be higher again this week.
3:28
I guess looking for not quite 6-7 bucks again this week, but
3:32
maybe, you know, get a couple three, maybe 5 if we're if we're
3:37
all making the same concerted effort.
3:39
But yeah, coming into holiday season here next two weeks,
3:43
short weeks. Everybody knows that most
3:45
obvious statement short kills, nothing big, nothing crazy
3:50
happening. So just kind of the slow down
3:53
before Christmas tax season. Everybody's doing tax prep.
3:58
You know, it's common theme in ranch country that hey, we've
4:02
got a tax problem. What are we going to do?
4:03
Oh, we can buy heifers, we can buy cows, we can buy feed.
4:08
We can also buy LRP and prepaid it not mandatory, but if you
4:15
want to get your LRP premium settled up by the end of the
4:17
year, you can definitely write that off.
4:19
Same with put options, call options, you know, if if we're
4:22
using them as a hedge, we can use that in our tax planning.
4:26
So talk to your accountant. Every one of them is different,
4:29
but the that's the normal, I should say.
4:32
So just that type of stuff going on here in the middle of
4:36
December. Yeah, it's kind of like you
4:39
said, it's that time of year where everyone is focused on a
4:41
million other things right now. And so luckily the cattle market
4:46
is just kind of coasting right now, which fine by me, fine by
4:50
me. The news outlets can keep the
4:53
cattle industry out of their mouth and out of the news
4:55
reports and we can just coast through the end of the year and
4:59
we can all sit back and deal with our taxes and deal with
5:02
winter prep and everything else that comes with this time of
5:05
year. Absolutely, Absolutely.
5:07
Yeah, It's no, I'm glad we got our Santa Claus rally in the
5:12
Seattle market. We didn't want to go into
5:13
Christmas doom and gloom and you know, kids don't get any
5:16
presents. It's I'm glad we got that rally.
5:20
We don't need to spoil it. We'll talk about bear stuff
5:22
after the first of the year. But yeah, it's, it's been good.
5:26
It's been a good couple weeks. Glad we got this rally.
5:28
And and I think, you know, producers for the for the most
5:32
part, if they missed out on the, you know, those three 30s, three
5:35
40s coverage levels, you know, on the way up, I think a fair
5:39
amount of them that's third layer and coverage in.
5:42
So that's good. A lot of unknowns as we go into
5:45
2026 and and as I've mentioned before, I think it's just going
5:49
to be a year of tighter margins. I don't think the feedlots in
5:53
the background are see those 6 to 100,600 to $1000 profits like
6:01
they did in 2025. So they really need to sharpen
6:05
their pencils when they're looking at buying these tabs.
6:07
The rancher obviously still making good money, a little bit
6:10
less than what they expected. And and that's unfortunate when
6:13
they only sell once or twice a year, but the nature of the
6:17
business we're in. So it's yeah, it's, it was a
6:22
good year 2025 recap I would say is, you know, got to be easily
6:27
the best year. And for the cattle industry I've
6:30
seen there's some struggles, there was some pain there for a
6:33
brief spell. And and I'm glad we're we're
6:36
finishing up the year on a good note, so.
6:39
Absolutely. Well you have a very festive
6:42
shirt on today Dan. Very, very festive.
6:44
Dan went but went to go change into this shirt beforehand and
6:48
I'm a little disappointed. It's not a Christmas shirt,
6:50
Christmas cow shirt, but it's fine.
6:52
It's fine. I'll let it slide.
6:53
Dan, would you like to share with the audience why you chose
6:56
to wear this shirt today? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
7:00
Thanks for that intro there, Lauren.
7:02
I'm going to go on a little bit of a rant here.
7:04
So I've taken off my cattle USA insurance hat.
7:08
I've put on my cattle feeder hat because I have a rant.
7:11
I have a, I have a bone to pick, you might say.
7:13
I was at a cattle organization meeting and they had brought in
7:17
some, some dietitian, they brought in, you know, a person
7:21
who's well known coast to coast as far as cooking and recipes
7:24
and all that stuff. And, you know, naturally I'm
7:27
always drawn to the side of the business that we don't get a lot
7:30
of exposure to, you know, the consumer.
7:32
What's the attitude? What are we hearing?
7:34
What are we seeing? What are the trend changes?
7:37
And I walked out of that meeting flat out pissed off.
7:41
Plain simple. I feel like in the last five
7:46
years we have had a lot of science come out arguing with
7:50
what the government's been pushing for the last 20 years,
7:54
you know, saying, shoot, we've talked about what is it,
7:56
carnivore diet, keto diet, high protein diets, how they're
8:00
solving a lot of health issues, right?
8:02
You know, weight loss, they're helping with diabetes, they're
8:06
helping with dementia, Alzheimer's.
8:11
I think there was even a study that I read it was helping with
8:15
autism, you know, put these kids on on high protein diet.
8:19
So I go to this meeting and I'm, you know, all you're just
8:23
sitting there listening and I'm wondering what are we hearing
8:26
from that side? Is there a big push?
8:28
Is that push for these carnivore and keto diet still continuing
8:32
on even amidst, you know, record high beef prices at retail, at
8:36
restaurants, you know, everywhere.
8:39
Why I came out of there so pissed off was because it's like
8:42
we reversed back five years and we went right back to let's push
8:46
the lean beef and let's push portion control.
8:50
What are our check off dollars even doing?
8:53
I mean, it's just fascinating to me that, you know, we send, what
8:58
is the check off? I, I want to say 50 million
9:01
plus, we send that much money in there.
9:03
When's the last time that we actually saw a commercial on
9:06
television? My Twitter, Facebook, TikTok
9:09
feeds, there's beef on there, but it's from people promoting
9:14
beef. It's not from the check off.
9:18
And I'm like, sure glad we're promoting beef.
9:22
Where is the doctors that are out there pushing how healthy
9:26
saturated fats are for you and how they're good with brain
9:29
development and working on some of those disease issues?
9:34
Where is the doctors and the data that I believe Harvard did
9:38
a study. Doctor Sean Baker, I think he's
9:40
been pushing it really, really hard on social media for several
9:43
years. Been on that carnivore diet
9:45
forever. Why are we not pushing that?
9:49
What's our money doing? So then I come, you know, drive,
9:53
drive home last night. I'm sitting there thinking the
9:57
big world, calm down, Dan. There's, there's a lot more to
10:00
it. There always is.
10:01
But inevitably what it comes down to for me is in the last,
10:08
let's just say specifically 2 1/2 months since this whole sell
10:12
off happening happened. You know, a lot of the spotlight
10:17
got shown on beef and how high it is and inflation and Trump.
10:22
And all the sudden, you know what we do?
10:25
We start investigating the Packers again.
10:28
We just finished up the last Packer investigation and now
10:31
we're starting a new one. Let's let's put our focus on the
10:35
consumer. Let's put our focus on promoting
10:38
beef and the value it has at the dinner table.
10:42
I mean, we can sit here and we can all piss and moan about
10:46
prices falling out of bed, but at the end of the day, before
10:49
any of that ever started, prices were already starting to correct
10:52
themselves. You know, I've shown the data.
10:54
Our volume dropped on the amount we were shipping.
10:58
Our, our prices started dropping before that ever happened.
11:01
The sentiment has changed consumers.
11:04
There was a huge push for that carnivore the last 2-3 years
11:07
coming out of COVID. We had the bull, the bull by the
11:10
horns. I mean, it was awesome.
11:12
Why are we not taking that and running with it if we're drawing
11:15
50 million plus into this check out, check off, why can't we buy
11:19
a $50,000 commercial and put it on the air on national
11:22
television and promote me? I mean, why can't we put it all
11:27
over social media? And I'm sure there's there is
11:29
stuff like that getting done. Don't get me wrong, just because
11:32
I'm missing it doesn't mean it's not happening.
11:34
But why isn't it just out there getting blood in the market?
11:38
I mean, the date of the science, it's all starting to come out.
11:41
People are realizing. And then and then I woke up this
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morning doing chores. I got thinking to myself, what a
11:49
perfect opportunity that we as beef producers have not had
11:54
since I've been alive. Make America healthy again,
11:57
right? Big push.
12:00
Why is beef not front and center in that?
12:03
Why are I mean, and maybe we are, we're out there having
12:06
meetings with Kennedy and Trump and maybe we are and I just
12:09
don't know about it. But at the same time, it's not
12:12
getting advertised televised. I don't see it.
12:14
Haven't heard of it from anybody.
12:16
You know, higher up. Why is this not happening?
12:18
You have the next 2 1/2 years before we change administration.
12:25
Why are we not front and center, sitting down at a table with
12:28
those people, making sure that when Kennedy steps out in front
12:33
of a podium and starts talking, that beef is something he said
12:37
every single time. And he's showing data and
12:41
they're pushing it because the data is there, the science is
12:44
there, but we're just not pushing it.
12:47
The focus needs to be on that right now.
12:50
Yeah, I it, it's easy to point the finger at the hacker and the
12:54
retailer and I'm, I'm guilty of it like anybody, but what are we
12:58
doing? I mean, we could have had a a
12:59
check off reform here in the last year, you know, well, we
13:03
could have had a check off reform in the last 2023 that
13:07
that sell off there and we started getting publicity.
13:09
We we need to do something here. I mean, this just isn't working.
13:14
You know, there were, we're taking dollars, Yeah, it's a
13:17
single dollar per head, but we're taking dollars out of the
13:20
out of the producer's pocket and we're not seeing the result.
13:25
The carnivore, the keto diet. Guess what?
13:27
I never saw those pushed by beef, check off.
13:30
Pork check off. If there's a chicken, check off.
13:33
I never saw those pushed by the prophet, by the checkouts.
13:37
I saw those pushed by specific doctors.
13:39
I saw those pushed by consumers that have been on it and found
13:43
really, really good results. And it's, it's like we're
13:46
wasting it. We're wasting the opportunity of
13:49
a lifetime. It's just disgusting.
13:52
I, I don't know, I'm done. I just, I went on my rant.
13:57
I threw the shirt on because it's a deep shirt and that's,
13:59
that's kind of the focus. But at the end of the day, it's
14:02
just I'm, I'm disgusted. We had the opportunity.
14:05
We still have the opportunity. I mean, like I said, 2 1/2 years
14:08
before we start going into election season, we need to get
14:12
front and center with these people in charge of this Maha
14:15
effort and and show them the data, show them the giant
14:19
because it's out there. We're just not using it.
14:22
It's sad. Yeah.
14:23
Rant over. Sorry, Lawrence.
14:25
No, I'm, I'm here for it. And I think you make a really
14:28
good point about the fact that so often in the beef industry, I
14:32
think that we get so focused on our inner turmoil that we forget
14:37
about supply and demand. We have to have demand for our
14:41
product in order to have high beef prices to continue to do
14:45
what we're doing here as American producers.
14:47
And so I think it's so often sometimes really easy to get
14:51
caught up in the, oh, the Packer did this, oh, the retailer did
14:55
this, the feeders did this. So the stalkers did this, like
14:57
and fighting against one another on it.
14:59
We're like the Cal calf guy against the feeder.
15:02
Like we're at the end of the day guys, we kind of are all on the
15:06
same team trying to push beef to the consumer and trying to make
15:12
beef front and center. I think that there's a lot of
15:15
different factors out there with beef prices and consumer
15:19
interest and like different things like that.
15:21
But you make such a great point that we have had the opportunity
15:24
of a lifetime to be able to push beef over the past few years.
15:28
And in some ways, I have seen a great uptick in it.
15:32
But in others, I feel like there have been a lot of different
15:35
areas where we have kind of dropped the ball and there's a
15:39
lot of room for improvement. And you make another great point
15:42
about the fact that we still have 2 1/2 years.
15:44
Like, let's not let this be something that we just look back
15:48
on and we're like, oh, we've really dropped the ball during
15:50
that time. Because I mean, frankly, if the
15:53
administration changes at the end of this election cycle, we
15:59
go into a new president, we go into a different party.
16:03
Not to get too political, but if we do change parties, shit's
16:07
going to change. And I don't want us looking back
16:11
in three years saying, Dang, I really, I really wish we would
16:15
have taken more advantage of that opportunity while we have
16:19
the chance. Because now we're getting all of
16:22
this like anti propaganda or all of this like just all the anti
16:28
propaganda that we have seen in past administrations that make
16:31
it really hard for us to do our job.
16:33
Yeah, like I said this, this whole rant started just because
16:36
I sat there and I watched dietitians talk about lean beat
16:39
and and pushing lean beat because these people have
16:43
cholesterol issue. Well, actually I'm not a doctor.
16:46
Don't follow my science. From what I'm read, some of that
16:50
sign old science is bad and pushing these high, high fatty
16:56
meat are helping with HDLLDLS in the proper way.
17:00
I mean, it's just I don't want to go down that rabbit hole
17:03
because it's not my area of expertise.
17:05
But at the same time, when we're talking about dietitians from
17:09
big companies pushing portion control, that's a problem.
17:13
When we're talking about them pushing lean, that's a problem
17:18
because that's not what the new science and data, it's not what
17:21
it's, oh, it's just misinformation.
17:23
And, and I hate to see it, it's, it's not good for the industry.
17:27
I hope the consumers are smart enough to realize that's not the
17:31
case. But nonetheless, it's, it's
17:34
just, I want to see us make some, some changes here in the
17:38
next couple years. It there's still time.
17:40
People got to get to work, though.
17:42
We've got to do something now. The check off needs to get off
17:45
their butt and figure out a way. Yeah, We cannot, when we cannot
17:49
put down pork, we cannot put down the other protein sources
17:52
in the process. But there is nothing out there
17:55
saying that we cannot push, you know, all natural saturated fats
18:00
that are currently exist in beef.
18:04
We there's nothing saying you can't push that.
18:07
There's nothing saying you can't show the data.
18:09
Why are we not showing that data?
18:12
I mean, put a $50,000 commercial on national television, maybe it
18:16
costs 100,000. That's like 1/10 of a 1% of our
18:20
total check off budget. But put it on national
18:24
television and get people to pull out their phones and start
18:26
Googling this stuff. Give them something to Google
18:30
every. I would say to more than half of
18:33
half of Americans, they, they care about their health.
18:37
It's just I don't think they're getting the right data.
18:40
Put the right data in front of them.
18:42
That's that's that's my big beef, the whole system.
18:45
So enough of my rant. I'm going to put the Cattle USA
18:50
insurance hat back on and we're going to go back to the market.
18:53
Yeah, sorry about that. No, I'm here for it.
18:57
I'm here for it. I, I appreciate it.
18:59
I appreciate the honesty because I think that you are not alone
19:03
in that camp and in that bucket and feeling extremely frustrated
19:07
about a lot of those situations as well.
19:09
So, Dan, is there anything else that we need to hit on that we
19:12
didn't cover today as far as the markets or anything else
19:15
concerned before we wrap it up? You know, kind of this whole
19:19
market strain still suck. They had a chance to push
19:22
through, got stopped by the 200 day moving average.
19:25
I think it's, you know, my hope is that after the holiday season
19:29
we come back and funds look at grains, it's undervalued.
19:34
Maybe we start seeing them buy, buy a few more of these, you
19:38
know, corn, wheat contracts, soybeans are are continuing to
19:42
struggle. Obviously products still
19:44
struggling like we can't get boil off it, but it's going to
19:48
be hard to rally the big market in a substantial way.
19:50
So same thing energies they've they've really got knocked here
19:54
lately. Hard to get really bullish
19:56
grains when energies are struggling and, and that comes
20:00
back to the administration. You know, he's always been low
20:04
oil energies matter to everything and they do He's
20:07
right about that. Back to livestock.
20:09
You've got an opportunity here. I'm very, very concerned about
20:13
beef demand in 2026. I I get those LRPS on so start
20:18
looking at that onboarding coverage, you know, going out in
20:20
the next fall through so. Wonderful, wonderful.
20:24
Well, Dan, thank you as always for your time coming on and
20:27
sharing about the markets, sharing some candor today as
20:31
well. I appreciate it.
20:32
I know our audience members do as well.
20:34
To everyone listening, if you need any of that coverage,
20:37
anything like that, make sure you check out the show notes
20:39
down below. We've got all of those links
20:41
that you can follow and find more information.
20:44
As always, thank you for listening to another episode of
20:46
the Cattle USA Daily Podcast, and we will see you all next
20:49
time on another episode. Have a good one y'all.