US: KSU’s Tonsor provides beef cattle outlook

If you take away just three things from Glynn Tonsor’s Beef Outlook, let them be these: Beef demand has been solid; supply dynamics likely support higher cattle prices; and we have to think global and yet manage at a local level. Tonsor, a Kansas State University professor of agricultural economics, spoke Sept. 29 at the 2022 KSU Beef Stocker Field Day in Manhattan, Kan. On both the domestic and export fronts, beef demand been solid, Tonsor said. But he cautioned cattle producers to not take that for granted. “I was 100% wrong early in the pandemic — most of you heard me say this — I was concerned that with the pull-down on economic activity, and uncertainty, and so forth, that consumers would tighten their wallets and wouldn’t spend what we normally would on beef,” he said. But he says he was wrong, and that’s good for cattle producers, because he didn’t foresee the federal stimulus having as big an impact as it did. “Regardless, we cannot take it for granted,” he added. “There’s ...