Cross-Hedging Bison with Live Cattle Futures

Bison production is an emerging retail meat industry. As demand increases, it creates opportunity for supply-side growth. However, the bison market is volatile and the potential for a drop in the value of bison makes price risk an important factor for producers. Following price risk theory, hedging opportunities for bison producers are investigated using the live cattle futures contract. For the time periods researched, there is no clear evidence that cross-hedging reduces price risk for bison producers. However, there is a possibility that after the bison industry becomes more established and consumer knowledge plays lesser of a role in prices, cross-hedging strategies will be advantageous to producers.