The North American cattle market is facing a shortage of breeding females over the next few years.

Brenda Schoepp, author BeefLink, cautions producers against getting too excited about lower cow numbers in the next few months.

"Evn though we're talking a lot about inventory and the reduction of cow inventory, as we reduce cow inventory it actually adds to beef production," she explains. "So we have to be a little bit careful there and understand that there's still quite a bit of beef to chew through in the front end of 2011."

"But the difference this year, compared with equivalent cow numbers in say 2003, is that we didn't retain any heifers in the last couple of years. So we will look at a significant shortage of breeding females in 2011 and 2012."

She notes this could result in increased feeder prices or higher imports from the U.S. "It could also be a shorting of the packer and an increase, as we already saw this year, of beef imports from the United States into Canada," she explains.

~ Monday, December 13, 2010 ~