LHCA study shows leather has no direct effect on cattle numbers
The Leather and Hide Council of America (LHCA) has published a report it commissioned earlier this year from two agricultural economists, renowned agricultural economists, Professor Gary Brester of Montana State University and Dr Kole Swanser.
LHCA’s objective was to address definitively ill-founded, but much-repeated claims that cattle are raised for their hides. It sought to do this by presenting objective economic analysis of the potential impact of the price of hides on cattle production in the US.
Professor Brester and Dr Swanser’s report looks to see if the value of hides has a direct effect on cattle production. After applying a method called the Granger Causality Test to the data, they conclude that no direct relationship exists between hide values and cattle production numbers.
They argue that an increase in the value of hides could have an indirect effect on cattle numbers, but only a relatively small one. They conclude that even if hide prices were to increase by 10%, the increase in cattle numbers that they might expect, based on established research methodologies and previous research they have carried out, to be limited to less than 0.2%.
Image: Erik Mclean/LHCA
