California feed prices

This page lists every feedstuff USDA quotes for the California trade region, cheapest first, with each price's FOB-vs-delivered basis. Compare an ingredient's cost per unit of protein or energy on the leaderboard before reading across regions: the cheapest board price is not the cheapest fed price.

What California prices. USDA's feedstuffs board carries 3 feedstuffs for this region: Corn gluten feed, Distillers dried grains (DDGS), Blood meal. 2 of them are quoted FOB at the plant and 1 delivered, so two rows on the same table are not directly comparable until the freight is accounted for. Across the board the range runs from Corn gluten feed at the low end to Blood meal at the high end, which is a spread in dollars per ton and not a ranking by feeding value.

Why a regional price differs from the national one. A feed ingredient's price at any point is the plant price where it was made plus the cost of getting it to where it is used, so the gap between two regions is mostly a freight story. Regions with processing capacity inside them tend to quote below the national reference because the ton has not travelled; regions that consume more than they produce quote above it by roughly the haul. That difference is the basis, and it widens when trucks tighten, when fuel runs up, or when a local demand source outbids the freight-out market for the same tons. It moves for reasons that have nothing to do with the ingredient itself, which is why a regional quote can rise in a week when the national board is flat.

This market. California is the largest single feed-demand market in the country and produces very little of what it feeds, so almost everything on this board arrived by rail or truck from the Midwest and the price carries that haul.