Incidence of Agro-Climate Variability over Grass-Fed Cattle Markets.

The objective of this study was the quantification of the effects of intra-annual and seasonal agro-climate variability over market conditions, for “open sky” livestock production systems such as those prevailing in Uruguay. Permanent conditions (soil type, including productivity and water storage capacity), pastures seasonal average growth cycles) will be discriminated from not permanent conditions (intra-annual and seasonal climate variability), identifying regional patterns using iso-price maps. The magnitude of the effects of the selected variables is reflected by their marginal contribution to the price received by cattle lots in the market at a certain point in time. Almost eight years of available per-lot trading information from live cattle video auctions is utilized to construct confidence intervals over the average price patterns. Information about abnormal intra-annual and seasonal variability, especially the occurrence of extreme events, will be used for monitoring unexpected changes and sudden short term cattle price movements