Impact of Mandatory Price Reporting on Fed Cattle Market Integration

Geographic fed cattle markets are important because cattle are bulky and perishable, and production and consumption areas are separated. These characteristics make cattle transportation costly and can contribute to segmented markets. This study uses USDA-AMS reported fed cattle market price data from five U.S. regional fed cattle markets to investigate the effects of mandatory price reporting on spatial market integration. Results indicate these markets have been, and remain, highly cointegrated after implementation of mandatory price reporting (MPR). Following introduction of mandatory price reporting, the five regional fed cattle markets have become more fully integrated (i.e., prices tend to move more closely one-for-one following introduction of MPR).cattle markets, cointegration, mandatory price reporting, market integration, regime shift, Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing,

EFFECT OF CAPTIVE SUPPLY ON FARM-TO-WHOLESALE BEEF MARKETING MARGIN

Debates about captive supplies have been ongoing for more than a decade. This study investigates the effects captive supplies have on the beef farm-to-wholesale marketing margin. A relative price spread (RPS) model is used to estimate beef farm-to-wholesale marketing margins. Estimates indicate that forward contracts and marketing agreements have a small positive relationship with margins that is marginally significant. Packer fed cattle may or may not be related to margins to depending upon model specification.Livestock Production/Industries, Marketing,

SPATIAL MARKET INTEGRATION IN REGIONAL CATTLE MARKETS

Geographic markets are extremely important to agriculture because agricultural products are bulky and/or perishable and production and consumption areas are separated. This study investigates how mandatory price reporting has influenced the degree of spatial market integration between U.S. regional fed cattle markets. Results indicate the market prices across the regional cattle markets are cointegrated. In addition, the amount of time it took for one market to react to the other markets change in price varied across the three time periods used in this study. This suggests mandatory price reporting has not substantially increased market integration.Industrial Organization,

THE ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF A FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE OUTBREAK: A REGIONAL ANALYSIS

Contagious animal diseases like foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) are often referred to as economic diseases because of the magnitude of economic harm they can cause to producers and to local communities. This study demonstrates the local economic impact of a hypothetical FMD outbreak in southwest Kansas, an area with high density of cattle feeding. The expected (most probable) economic impact of the disease hinges heavily on where the incidence of the disease occurs. If the disease were to occur in a cow-calf herd in the region economic impact is expected to be relatively small compared to if it were introduced simultaneously in five large feedlots in southwest Kansas. Disease surveillance, management strategies, mitigation investment, and overall diligence clearly need to be much greater in concentrated cattle feeding and processing areas at the large feeding operations in the region.Livestock Production/Industries,

Rapid submarine ice melting in the grounding zones of ice shelves in West Antarctica.

Enhanced submarine ice-shelf melting strongly controls ice loss in the Amundsen Sea embayment (ASE) of West Antarctica, but its magnitude is not well known in the critical grounding zones of the ASE's major glaciers. Here we directly quantify bottom ice losses along tens of kilometres with airborne radar sounding of the Dotson and Crosson ice shelves, which buttress the rapidly changing Smith, Pope and Kohler glaciers. Melting in the grounding zones is found to be much higher than steady-state levels, removing 300-490 m of solid ice between 2002 and 2009 beneath the retreating Smith Glacier. The vigorous, unbalanced melting supports the hypothesis that a significant increase in ocean heat influx into ASE sub-ice-shelf cavities took place in the mid-2000s. The synchronous but diverse evolutions of these glaciers illustrate how combinations of oceanography and topography modulate rapid submarine melting to hasten mass loss and glacier retreat from West Antarctica