April 20

4/20 – In Friday’s monthly cattle report, the USDA said feedlot inventories on April 1st were 11.58M head, down 0.5% from a year ago. New placements onto feedlots in March were 7.2% below last year. New world screwworm disease in Mexico continues to show no signs of abating. Mexico accounted for over 4% of our beef cows in 2024 and the import ban left the U.S. short roughly 1.1M feeders in 2025. In last week’s Livestock, Dairy and Poultry Outlook, the USDA reduced projected 2026 U.S. beef production by 20M pounds and said that total beef output would decline by 0.8% this year, following a 3.6% decline in 2025. On a positive note, beef imports - mostly 90s lean trimmings - look to be up by 5.8% in 2026, following an 18.0% jump in 2025. The USDA says cattle prices averaged $224.37/cwt in 2025 and projects $241.66 in 2026, both numbers shattering the previous record-high of $187.12/cwt in 2024.