Texas Daily Ag Market News Summary 11/30/17

Feeder cattle auctions mixed; futures down.

Formula trades lower; Beef prices lower.

Cotton prices down.

Grains and soybeans up.

Milk futures up.

Crude oil up; Natural gas lower.

Stock markets up.

Cattle:

Texas feeder cattle auctions showed mixed prices, with instances of $5 to $7 lower and steady to $8 to $10 higher. January Feeder cattle futures were $1.40 lower, closing at $154.17 per hundredweight (cwt). The Texas fed cattle cash trade closed at $120.95 (cwt). December Fed cattle futures were lower, dropping 57 cents to close at $119.90 per cwt. Wholesale boxed beef values were lower, with Choice grade falling $1.91 to close at $204.64 per cwt and Select grade falling $1.63 to close at $184.21 per cwt. Estimated cattle harvest for the week totaled 477,000, up 117,000 from last week’s total and up 17,000 from last year’s total. Year-to-date harvest is up 3.69%. 

Cotton:

Cotton prices were lower, closing at 71.25 cents per pound and December cotton futures dropping .48 cents to close at 75.04 cents per pound. 

Corn and Grain Sorghum:

Corn prices were up with cash prices gaining 1 cent, closing at $3.58 per bushel and December futures up 3 cents to close at $3.42 per bushel. Grain Sorghum cash prices were up, gaining 8 cents to close at $5.66 per cwt. 

Wheat:

Wheat prices were up with cash prices gaining 7 cents to close at $3.74 per bushel and December futures gaining 1 cent to close at $4.15 per bushel.

Milk:

Milk prices were up with December Class III milk closing at $15.37 per cwt.

Stock Markets and Crude Oil:

Stock markets were up, with all three of the major indexes showing gains. January Crude oil futures were up 10 cents to close at $57.40 per barrel.

Daily Market News Summary Data

If you are interested in receiving this daily report, please subscribe here.

From Agri-Pulse:

Low-carbon, animal-free diet would leave population undernourished, study says

Livestock production has long been fingered as a significant contributor to climate change, fueling movements such as Meatless Mondays, the campaign to get Americans to cut back on meat consumption.

So, researchers with Virginia Tech and USDA’s Agricultural Research Service set out to figure out what would happen if all Americans quit eating any animal products. Greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced, but at the cost of adequate nutrition.

Agricultural carbon emissions would drop by 28 percent, and switching to vegan diets would increase overall production of food, mostly grains, by 23 percent, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But, the researchers warned, Americans could be left without some key nutrients.

Domestic consumption of calcium, key fatty acids and vitamins A and B12 would be insufficient. Animal products are the only sources in the diet for the fatty acids and the B12, the study said.

"Overall, the removal of animals resulted in diets that are nonviable in the long or short term to support the nutritional needs of the U.S. population without nutrient supplementation," the authors write.

Animal-derived foods currently provide 24 percent of the energy, 48 percent of the protein, 23 percent to 100 percent of the essential fatty acids, and 67 percent of essential amino acids that Americans consume. More than half of the food-derived calcium, vitamins A, B12 and choline, and riboflavin were from animal products.

The authors noted that vegetarian diets have been shown to lower the risk of heart disease but said it would be challenging for a large population to get all the nutrients it needs. Their bottomline: Recommendations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should account for indirect impacts on nutrition and other issues.

"It is entirely possible to meet the nutrient requirements of individual humans with carefully crafted, unsupplemented plant-based rations, but this can be a challenge to achieve in practice for an entire population," the researchers said.

If you'd like to hear another article, here is an audio file from Agri-Pulse:

AUDIO: USDA predicts stable farm income for 2017