No Accident NAIS Opponents Outnumber Supporters at Listening Sessions

No Accident NAIS Opponents Outnumber Supporters at Listening Sessions

Stewart Doan

Hoosier AG Today

  Opponents of USDA’s National Animal Identification System far outnumbered supporters at the eight animal ID listening sessions held so far. It turns out that’s not by accident.

Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance Executive Director, Judith McGeary, confirms her group is working with the National Family Farm Coalition and other small farm advocacy groups to encourage anti-NAIS turnout at the listening sessions, and she is pleased with the results thus far. “The simple fact is that small farmers, people who own a few animals, consumers, we are the majority by a huge percentage, in terms of number of people. And we’ve been loud enough and strong enough that USDA has agreed that it needs to, at the very least, give the appearance of paying attention to those concerns.”

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Managing the Postpartum Interval

Managing the Postpartum Interval

Rick Funston, Extension Beef Specialist, Montana State University

Do you want to receive more money for your calves this fall? Of course, we all do, the key is to receive a greater return than the investment. There are several critical success factors in every beef cattle operation; including managing cow costs, weaning weights and % calf crop. The most critical time period for opportunity to influence these factors is just prior to and after calving.

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Beef producers hope cattle insurance helps stability

Beef producers hope cattle insurance helps stability

Peace Country Sun

Unstable cattle prices have beef producers in the Grande Prairie region and across the province eager to see the details of Alberta’s new Cattle Price Insurance Program (CPIP) set to be unveiled this summer, says provincial livestock risk management specialist Bruce Viney.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty around cattle prices right now,” says Viney, explaining the weak economy is one key factor, with consumers favouring less expensive meat products like hamburger over steak.

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Ag Enhancement, UT Field Days coming up

Ag Enhancement, UT Field Days coming up

Rusty Evans

The Leaf Chronicle

The 2009 Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement cost share opportunities applications are now available in the County Extension Office or on-line at http://www.TN.gov/agriculture/enhancement.

The application this year includes all of the following opportunities for cost share; Cattle Genetics, Livestock Equipment, Verified Incentive Program, Hay Storage, Livestock Feed Storage, Grain Storage, and Producer Diversification.

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‘First 100 days’ provided some hits and misses

‘First 100 days’ provided some hits and misses

Lynne Finnerty

The Prairie Star

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933, the United States was in an economic depression the likes of which had not been seen before and, thank goodness, hasn’t been seen again since.

Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office went by in such a flurry of activity to shore up the crippled banking system and provide relief to the millions of unemployed Americans, the “first 100 days” yardstick has been used ever since to see how each president measures up.

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Breeding Soundness Evaluation for Beef and Dairy Bulls

Breeding Soundness Evaluation for Beef and Dairy Bulls

Brett Barham Extension Livestock Specialist, Jodie A. Pennington Extension Dairy Specialist, University of Arkansas

The breeding soundness evaluation (BSE) is a practical method to identify bulls with less than satisfactory breeding potential. This evaluation should be conducted on every bull at least 30 to 60 days before each breeding season to allow enough time for replacement of deferred or unsatisfactory bulls. The first step in a BSE is to select a veterinarian in your area who is competent in conducting a complete BSE. You cannot afford to use a bull who is not a satisfactory potential breeder.

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Technique key in Cattle Working Contest

Technique key in Cattle Working Contest

MONICA SPRINGER

Garden City Telegram

Feedlot cowboys and cowgirls gathered beneath the grandstands at the Finney County Fairgrounds on Friday afternoon to hear some advice from the Beef Empire Days Cattle Working Contest judges.

Don’t stress out the calf, judges Mel Metzen and Todd Stone said. Get them caught and don’t fight with them in the chute.

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More farmers are getting along with little dogies

More farmers are getting along with little dogies

P.J. HUFFSTUTTER

HeraldTribune.com

Walking through their lowing herd of several hundred cattle, Ali and Kenny Petersen were two Gullivers on a Lilliputian roundup.

The half-sized cows barely reached Kenny’s waist. The ranch’s border collie stared eye-to-eye with wandering calves.

“Aren’t they sweet?” asked Ali Petersen, 52, shooing Half-Pint, Buttercup and a dozen other cattle across a holding pen. “They’re my babies, every little one of them.”

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Middle Tennessee farmers call it quits

Middle Tennessee farmers call it quits

A disappearing way of life

Clay Carey

THE TENNESSEAN

Even at age 90, Alvin McKee can’t stay away from the cattle sales.

He keeps the door to the dusty office near his auction ring open, letting in the occasional breeze, a steady stream of visiting farmers, and the crunch of wheels on gravel from trucks delivering Black Angus and white Charolais beef calves to the maze of pens and corrals out back.

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SD ranchers opting for smaller herds

SD ranchers opting for smaller herds

KXMC

South Dakota ranchers are opting for smaller herds, a trend one Agriculture official attributes to high input costs.

Large South Dakota feedlots had 225,000 beef cattle in April, unchanged from the previous year.

But Marshall County Extension educator Tyler Melroe says January numbers can be a better indicator of long-term trends.

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Approach to research speeds knowledge of feeding corn co-products to cattle

Approach to research speeds knowledge of feeding corn co-products to cattle

High Plains Journal

As a way to increase the number of corn co-products research studies it supports, and ensure that research takes on a direction that will more quickly benefit the state’s cattle industry, the Nebraska Corn Board has created a beef cattle advisory committee.

The committee reviews the latest research results and helps determine which direction the next set of research projects should take. This reduces the time in between research projects and more quickly increases the knowledge base of feeding corn co-products, like distillers grains, to cattle.

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Global body lifts age limit on beef trade with respect to BSE+

Global body lifts age limit on beef trade with respect to BSE+

Pddnet.com

The World Organization for Animal Health adopted a resolution Friday lifting cattle age limits for beef exports and imports with regard to mad cow disease, a move likely to strengthen U.S. pressure on Japan to import beef from older cattle.

Under standards set by the global livestock industry watchdog, known by its French acronym OIE, beef exports and imports had been limited to boneless meat from cattle younger than 30 months old.

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HSUS: More than agriculture, it’s a consumer issue

More than agriculture, it’s a consumer issue

Korre Boyer

Marion Star

The Humane Society of the United States, or HSUS as commonly referred to, is an organization that has recently set its eye on Ohio agriculture. To really understand what this means for Ohio, we must look at some of the other states that HSUS has targeted. Most recently, California has fallen victim to untruthful propaganda and misleading information in the form of what was called Proposition 2. Proposition 2 basically outlawed the use of several modern animal agriculture practices.

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Cattle a tough target in Amazon protection fight

Cattle a tough target in Amazon protection fight

Stuart Grudgings

Scientific American

The small plane is gliding over a mesmerizing landscape of green pasture interspersed by patches of forest, but Wayne Lindbergh keeps his eyes firmly glued to his laptop.

Below, where a map on his screen indicates forest stood last year, bare soil is charred brown by recent burning, another example of the widespread illegal deforestation of the Amazon forest that environmentalists blame on cattle ranchers.

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Better understanding grass-fed vs. grain-fed beef

Better understanding grass-fed vs. grain-fed beef

Ryan Cox

University of Minnesota Beef Team

In a market where each purchase decision is met with increased scrutiny, consumers are demanding more specific characteristics from the meat items that they purchase.

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