Ron Plain and Scott Brown
University of Missouri
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The Food and Drug Administration announced this week that they are "implementing a plan to help phase out the use of medically important antimicrobials in food animals for food production purposes, such as to enhance growth or improve feed efficiency." The FDA's December 11 news release said "Once a manufacturer voluntarily makes these changes, its medically important antimicrobial drugs can no longer be used for production purposes, and their use to treat, control, or prevent diseases in animals will require veterinary oversight." This new policy on antibiotic use should decrease livestock and poultry feed conversion and thus increase feed demand. It should also drive up per head veterinary costs, especially for smaller operations.
USDA's December supply and demand estimates lowered their midpoint price forecast for the 2013 corn harvest by a dime to $4.40 per bushel. They raised their price forecast of soybean meal during the 2013-14 marketing year to $420/ton. USDA increased their forecast of pork production by 0.3% for 2013 and by 0.6% for 2014. They are now predicting 3.0% more pork and chicken next year, 1.4% more turkey, but 5.7% less beef than in 2013. Total production of red meat and poultry is expected to be up 0.5% in 2014.
Testing data from the National Animal Health Laboratory Network says that as of December 1, the PED virus has been confirmed on 1,512 swine premises in 20 states. This is an increase of 140 locations and one state (Nebraska) from the week before. This was the largest weekly increase yet. There is an uncertain amount of double counting in this data.