Excerpt from Price Spreads for Beef

In addition to the steady upward trend price spreads for beef ofien changed sharply from month to month. Most of these short-term changes were explained by changes in the supply of cattle. Retail prices adjusted to supply changes much more slowly than did cattle prices. These lags caused price spreads to behave erratically in the short run. This was apparent during 1962 when prices of Choice grade cattle increased for 9 of the 12 months and the farm - retail spread dropped sharply during the year to its lowest annual average since 1959. In 1963, when cattle prices dropped during 10 of the 12 months, the spread increased sharply to near the level predicted by the long-term trend.

The farm-retail price spread increased cents in the 1949-64 period. This resulted from a -cent increase in the wholesale-retail spread anda -cent increase in the farm-wholesale spread. The farm-retail price spread for beef has increased more rapidly since 1949 than have spreads for other red meats and for all foods, and much faster than the consumer price index.

Price spreads for beef tended to narrow in the 25 years between 1920 and 1945. Shortly after World War II, this trend was reversed and the widening trend observed above has been characteristic since. Most of the increase has been in the wholesale retail spread, with the farm-wholesale spread increasing at about the rate of the consumer price index.

The examples in this bulletin of individual marketings of cattle from ranch and farm point out that differences between costs and selling prices can vary greatly, yielding different returns for similar services at different times. For the livestock producer and feeder, they indicate that the timing of purchases and sales is a major factor in profit and loss. For the consumer, they show how the marketing services of feeding, hauling, slaughtering, distribution, and retailing enter into the retail price of beef.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.