I live in the US. Confined Animal Feeding Operations are disgusting and unhealthy for both the animals and whatever eats the animals. Cattle have stomachs evolved to eat grasses, not corn, which is what they are fed most of the time in the US. Feeding cattle corn causes health problems, as the cattle have a much harder time digesting it than they do grass. They feed them corn here because it is highly subsidised and has been cheap until recently, and the high sugar content in the corn, together with large amounts of cattle fat (yes we make them eat their own kind), and the lack of excercise makes them fatten up quickly. They also need to fatten them quickly because the diet they are fed tends to destroy their livers. I know this is off topic, but it is something I follow closely. As far as the price of live cattle/hogs, the price will go up if farmers can't make money at these levels, unless the price of the inputs(corn/soy/oil) goes down. BTW, how do you pay for grass? I've been to Europe many times and it seems grass grows just as it does here. If you are talking about grass seed, then that is irrelevant to feeding cows or cattle.
As someone who has an extensive family background in Cattle, both ranching and feedlots, I'll weigh in. Grass feeding is not free. The cost of gain may be less on grass but there are still significant costs involved in producing those pounds of meat. We have nearly 60,000 acres of grass on our ranch, where up to two-thousand yearlings will graze (along with several hundred mother cows), those yearlings will gain about 200-250 lbs over the course of the grazing season. They will then go into our feedlot to finish. The cost of gain per pound of meat on grass will be around .40 to .50, at the feedlot it will be around a 1.00 to 1.15. We won't "cram" cattle into the feedlot, they will maintain roughly the same behavior and social characteristics as they had with miles to roam on the ranch. They will still butt heads, rub against each other, pile into a big bunch when there is weather or if the flies get bad. Contrary to popular belief the Cattle will not be given a specifically fatty diet to promote fat gain. They will eat ground corn, silage, which is the entire Corn plant that has been chopped, the corn plant is a grass and ground hay which is a grass. The Cattle will be given protein building implants because we want the cattle to gain lots of muscle. Again, contrary to popular belief these implants do not metabolize in the meat. The level of estrogen in these implanted cattle is 10 nanograms per pound of meat. The level of estrogen in eggs is 15,890 and Soybean Oil 908,000...ice cream is 2,724. For comparison the average daily production of estrogen in an adult male is 100,000 nanograms, 5,000,000 for a woman and 40,000 for a child. As far as economics goes if you can replace the cattle you are selling at a positive cash flow after cost of gain is figured in then you make money. In this sense it's just like a grocery store. If the store can buy a loaf of bread for less than the loaf of bread they just sold then they have a positive cash flow. If I just sold fat cattle last week at .94/lb. and a 1.00 cost of gain per pound then I need to buy feeder cattle (roughly a 750 pound animal) to replace my inventory that will cost no more than .896 per pound if I want to breakeven. Obviously Feeder Cattle are selling for more than this so I have to go to lower or higher weights or not buy anything. Live Cattle (fat cattle) need to go up relative to feeder cattle for the average producer to make money. So prices could go up or down but feeder cattle need to go down more than live cattle or go up less than live cattle to increase profitability.
So price of cattle must change. It depents on price of grass. What do you think about price of pork? Pork eat corn, so price will go up or not. What do you think?
im thinkg about a fat feeder spread. i think they might reach parity or maybe get closer thatn they are now