Retail Complications For COOL

Retail Complications For COOL

Troy Marshall

BEEF Magazine

Perhaps it is too early to tell, but I’ve always known mandatory country of origin labeling (COOL) is nothing more than a little more bookkeeping at the production level.

Packers are still trying to work through the dynamics of how to make it work with minimal cost, but the real concern continues to be raised at the retail level. There are only so many slots that a store has at their disposal when stocking its meat case. Labels require segregation, and suppliers who have opted for a multi-country or U.S. label have found inconsistency in supply to be an issue, as packers struggle with filling orders and maintaining production efficiency.

Full Story

Giving a cold shoulder to C.O.O.L.

Giving a cold shoulder to C.O.O.L.

BCRnews.com

The election is over; the government has just realized we have been in a recession since last fall (2007); farm commodity prices have fallen 60 percent (yet food prices have yet to decline); and the U.S. Treasury is bailing out every mismanaged bank, corporation and/or business in this country. What a place and time to live!

The new administration campaigned for more than 20 months for change. Let’s hope they mean it and start with the government enforcing laws on the books and not creating needless chaos by implementing confusing legislation such as C.O.O.L.

Full Story

Cattle, corn and credit crunch make for turbulent times

Cattle, corn and credit crunch make for turbulent times

Tim Petry,

Minnesota Farm Guide

It is my pleasure to introduce Frayne Olson, who recently joined the NDSU Extension Service as a crops marketing economist. He will comment on the corn market in this column and will author future Market Advisor columns in the crops marketing, risk management and price outlook area.

What turbulent times to start a career in marketing!

Full Story

The stink is not in the field, gentlemen

The stink is not in the field, gentlemen

Forrest Hershberger

Journal-Advocate

Just when a guy thought it was safe to try a little farming, Big Brother raises his head.

Cattle and sheep are likely in fear, or is it uproarious laughter, but it isn’t because of the butcher and a clown. This is far too strange for a clown to address, and would leave the butcher in amazement.

Full Story

Eat meat? — not if global warming advocates get their way

Eat meat? — not if global warming advocates get their way

Global warming control advocates are already starting to attack United States farms raising meat. The objective — to make domestic meat so expensive that it will not be feasible for most folks to consume it driving those farms out of business. Only the rich will be able to afford imported meats and other domestic industry will be lost.

Full Story

Where’s the beef from?

Where’s the beef from?

Jimmy LaRoue

News Virginian

It’s a popular trend for marketing food products, but country-of-origin labeling has nothing to do with food safety.

According to Julie Lewis, who works in the agriculture marketing service for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the new law is about marketing the origin of products only.

“People don’t understand that it’s not a food safety law,” Lewis said.

Full Story

Watch cattle nutritional requirements in cold weather

Watch cattle nutritional requirements in cold weather

Minnesota Farm Guide

Very cold temperatures and bitter wind chills make managing cattle nutrition critical for ranchers.

Low temperatures and wind can increase cattle nutrient requirements by 20 to 30 percent, South Dakota State University Extension Beef Specialist Cody Wright said.

“A good rule of thumb is that for every degree below 32 degrees, including wind chill, a cow’s energy requirements increase by 1 percent,” Wright said. “How you manage your cows between now and calving may have the single largest impact on how your cows breed back next summer.”

Full Story

North Dakota beef herd being tested for bovine TB

North Dakota beef herd being tested for bovine TB

The Jamestown Sun

A North Dakota beef herd is being tested for bovine tuberculosis, following the identification of a cow with a TB lesion at a Minnesota meat processing plant.

“We are in the early stages of the investigation, and complete results of the herd tests won’t be known for several weeks,” said Dr. Susan Keller, state veterinarian, on Friday.

Full Story

Ranchers say tough Corriente cattle easy on land

Ranchers say tough Corriente cattle easy on land

KGW

Some Eastern Oregon ranchers say a breed of Spanish cattle known as Corriente can survive tough conditions but are easier on the land than other livestock.

Craig and Liza Jane Nichols, owners of the 6 Ranch near Enterprise, brought in 15 head of Corrientes from New Mexico in 1989 after reading an article about the breed in Western Horseman magazine.

Full Story

Analyst: Recession slashes consumer meat demand

Analyst: Recession slashes consumer meat demand

ROXANA HEGEMAN

Businessweek

As the recession deepens, people are eating less beef, pork and poultry, leading to the biggest per capita decline in meat consumption since 1982, an industry analyst told the Kansas Livestock Association.

Hundreds of cattlemen gathered here for the group’s annual convention amid fears over a global credit crisis and concerns about stricter environmental regulation under the Obama administration.

Full Story

U of M Feedlot Ration Balancer now available

U of M Feedlot Ration Balancer now available

Mike Boersma

University of Minnesota Beef Center

Minnesota Farm Guide

The University of Minnesota Extension Beef Team has released the U of M Feedlot Ration Balancer to help beef producers and feedlot managers more closely examine the nutrient requirements of their feedlot cattle.

The ration balancer is a Microsoft Excel computer program that is available for download from the internet. It is free of charge and is designed to help producers seriously study the nutritional needs of their operations. This is crucial as Minnesota beef producers find themselves in times of high price volatility and, at times, narrow profit margins.

Full Story

Ultrasounding Heifers

Ultrasounding Heifers

Troy Smith

Angus Journal

Among cow-calf producers who routinely retain home-raised heifers as herd replacements the process often stirs mixed emotions. On the one hand, it’s fun to watch heifer calves develop, consider their parentage, and compare their performance. It’s fun to narrow your picks from the most promising candidates. It can make you anxious. After all, those replacement heifers represent a significant contribution to the genetic improvement of the cow herd. At least, they should.

Full Story

Monitor corn stalk quality

Monitor corn stalk quality

American Cowman

Rain in the fall usually is welcomed despite the delays it causes with crop harvest. Pastures and alfalfa benefit from extra growth and winterizing capabilities. Wheat and other small grains get well established as do any new fields of alfalfa or pasture. And the reserve moisture stored in the soil will get good use during next year’s growing season.

Full Story

Living Like A Local, Part 2

Living Like A Local, Part 2

Gary Truitt

Hoosier AG Today

In part one of this series, I discussed how city folks who move to a rural community can adjust to their new environment. I discussed how to get around using the unofficial rural address system and the proper etiquette for driving on rural roads. I was inspired to write this series by the Missouri Cooperative Extension system which has developed a “Rural 101” course to teach newcomers to rural areas the facts of rural life. While very informative, as most Extension programs are, it lacked some important basics like how to communicate with your neighbors. Interpersonal communications is the subject of Part 2 of this series.

Full Story

Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers

Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers

BOB JOHNSON

Associated Press

For farmers, this stinks: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if a federal proposal to charge fees for air-polluting animals becomes law.

Farmers so far are turning their noses up at the notion, which is one of several put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases emitted by belching and flatulence amounts to air pollution.

Full Story