Download market prices from USDA website
To update market prices follow these steps:
- Navigate to folder C:\Program Files\UCDAVIS\MPP\Source\ and open the USDA_ca_market.CSV file with Excel. The file has six columns: Year, Month, Day, Hay ($/ton), Cow ($/cwt), Calves ($/cwt), Slide. The column heading must be exactly as shown above with a single space before the left parenthesis in hay, cow, and calves column. The file name must start with the word USDA followed by an under score. Navigate to the last row and add new entries.
- Point your web browser to:
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/MannUsda/viewDocumentInfo.do?documentID=1002 - In the Latest Releases section, double click the .txt file or in the Previous Realeases section, locate the latest monthly data that is not included in the USDA_ca_market.CSV file
- Scroll down until you find Hay price for California (all hay) in the section entitled "Prices Received for Hay by Type - States and United States". Write down the hay price:
- Scroll up or down to locate the table entitled "Prices Received for Vegetables and Livestock". Write down the price of calves and cows:
- Switch to USDA_ca_market.CSV and enter the year, month and day (day is always 15) in the correspomding columns. Enter the price for hay, cows, and calves in the corresponsing columns.
- Calculate the Slide factor for each row. You must have the price for Choice 450 lb steer ($/cwt) and price for Choice 650 lb steer ($/cwt) for that month. For Example:
- Choice 450 lb Steer ($/cwt) = 67.73
- Choice 650 lb Steer ($/cwt) = 63.32
- Slide Factor = (63.32 – 67.73)/(650-450) = -0.022050
- Save the USDA_ca_market.CSV as comma separated (csv) file. Do not save it as xls file. You should be able to open it in NotePad as a text file.
- Run MPP program to convert USDA_ca_market.CSV into ca_market.CSV
- Copy ca_market.csv from C:\Program Files\UCDAVIS\MPP\Source\ folder of mpp program to the M folder of PCRANCH program at: C:\Program Files\UCDAVIS\PCRANCH\M\