Drought, energy demand boosted prices for corn, and thus for beef

It’s June and it’s hot. There are spots on Vencel’s green polo shirt that have turned dark from sweat. The animals are up a hill in the woods, hiding out in the shade. They’re mostly grazing this time of year, but Vencel has a few buckets of feed and minerals to bring them down into the holler so he can check on them.

“And they won’t hurt ya, but it’ll look like a stampede here in a second,” he said.

Sure enough, after a few more whoops and wooos, a low rumble builds as the animals make their way down from the hill. Vencel carries a five-gallon bucket from the bed of his truck and dumps the contents on the ground. Wet snouts and long, fat tongues dive into the mix of minerals, corn and soybean byproducts.

Vencel said he used to grind his own corn for feed, but found it was more economical to sell his corn and purchase a mix of corn and soybean byproducts for feed.

Differences in feed are just one of the many changes beef producers have seen in recent years. Those changes have combined to result in record high beef prices for consumers. In June of 2010, the average price for a pound of uncooked ground beef in the Midwest was about $2.95, according to the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. In June of this year, the average price was about $4.03 per pound.