UNCERTAIN TIMES

Florida Cattlemen Open Up About Riding Out Fluctuations

- TIM CRAIG

IT WOULD BE NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE to discuss the livestock industry without the lens of the current health pandemic hanging low and shading whatever picture is created. With local, state, and national factors changing on an almost daily basis and codified patterns of behavior in flux for an undetermined future, it would be easy to either write this year off as an anomaly or despair and consider this the new normal.

But for most of the Central Florida cattlemen, who’s livelihood is not rooted in easy solutions and whose impact goes beyond the local economy and health of the region, this lessons of year may turn out to be like most others: remain consistent, grow where you can, and keep an eye toward the future.

In January, the USDA released a report that stated while nationally the number of cattle and calves were slightly down in the first month of 2020, Florida’s 1.68 million cattle inventory remained unchanged from the previous year. The top counties for cattle and calves are largely in Central Florida, including Okeechobee, Highlands, Osceola, and Polk.

For Matt Pearce, the president of the Florida Cattlemen’s Association, those consistent inventory numbers could lead to an upturn in prices.

“From a national standpoint,” he says, “we’re at peak cowherd numbers, it isn’t expanding much; with that plateau, we should see an upturn in prices.”

For the first quarter of 2020, things were pretty good, according to Dave Tomkow, president of the Polk County Cattlemen’s Association and owner of the Cattlemen’s Livestock Auction Market in Lakeland.