Pounds+Premiums =Profits

Pounds+Premiums =Profits

Dan Rieder

SimTalk

Krieger Farms, owned and operated by Mark and Jame Krieger (rhymes with eager) of Universal, Indiana, focuses on the production of Simmental- cross commercial cattle that consistently bring bottom-line enhancing premiums at the sale barn. “We strongly believe in the SimChoice program,” Mark says. “Buyers are willing to pay a premium of $10 to $15 more per hundredweight when our calves show up with those Simmental Genetic ear tags, just because they know that the calves are age-and-source verified. It is a powerful and effective sales tool for us.”

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Farm Groups on Opposite Sides of Climate Change Debate

Farm Groups on Opposite Sides of Climate Change Debate

Hoosier AG Today

  Depending on whom you ask, cap and trade can be a good thing for farmers or it can hurt farmers financially. National Farmers Union has endorsed the House-passed bill on climate change. NFU President Roger Johnson says one reason it needed to be passed is because it sends a message to other countries that the U.S. is serious about taking steps toward a better environment. “One thing is very clear. If the U.S. has passed nothing by the time Copenhagen talks begin in December, the rest of the world will look at the U.S. as having really no moral authority.

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What A Cattle Buyer Wants

What A Cattle Buyer Wants

Sara Brown

Beef Today

What do buyers want? You don’t need to be hit by lightning to know the inner thoughts of a cattle buyer. All you need is his cell phone number and a dose of patience.

Still, it’s tough to catch an order buyers. They travel to two, three, sometimes four sales per week, are in constant communication with multiple clients and often making farm visits at clients’ request. Cattle buyers’ customers—the next owner of your cattle (backgrounders, feeders and packing plants)—put their trust in them to deliver the type and quality of cattle they expect from the farm level.

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House bill would ban some antibiotics for food animals

House bill would ban some antibiotics for food animals

Christina Macejko

DVM NEWSMAGAZINE

While FDA pushes forward, AVMA forms task force to examine issue

With the backing of the Obama administration, a new measure introduced in the House of Representatives seeks to ban some uses of antibiotics for food animals because they are considered too important for human health.

The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) opposes the bill, known as the "Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2009."

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Baxter Black, DVM: A TO Z DEPENDS ON WHERE YOUR MIND IS

Baxter Black, DVM:  A TO Z DEPENDS ON WHERE YOUR MIND IS

There are globally astute, politically tuned, conscientiously correct people who watch C-Span and write letters to the editor. When the letter “A” is flashed before their eyes they immediately think Ahmadinejad (president of Iran), Ambassador or Al Gore.

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Salvaging Soybeans As Hay And Silage

Salvaging Soybeans As Hay And Silage

Dr. Bruce Anderson, Professor of Agronomy, Agronomy & Horticulture, University of Nebraska

Late-planted soybeans that don’t mature before the fall frost can be salvaged as hay or silage, says Bruce Anderson, University of Nebraska Extension forage specialist. He says soybean hay and silage can have feeding values very similar to alfalfa, at least when they’re made right.

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Time writer admits to pursuing his own angle

Time writer admits to pursuing his own angle

Thomas Quaife

Dairy Herd Management

Bryan Walsh, who wrote a damning article on modern agriculture in Time magazine, admitted in an AgriTalk interview Monday morning that the story took the angle he wanted to pursue rather than presenting both sides in a balanced, objective manner.

He said it’s been a trend at Time to have “more stories angled toward the point of view of the writer.”

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Using DNA Marker Technologies Today…And Tomorrow

Using DNA Marker Technologies Today…And Tomorrow

AG Network

Recently, it seems that seedstock and commercial producers are being bombarded with advertising that promotes a variety of DNA marker technologies for application in selection and management programs. Moreover, the volume of advertisements reporting a particular AI sire’s, donor dam’s or yearling bull’s genotype results for a variety of production traits has increased dramatically over the last year. In fact, it is hard to pick up a seedstock or trade publication without finding a number of animals being merchandised on the basis of their DNA marker profiles, sometimes without reference to the animal’s EPDs.

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CattleSense: Still Impossible

CattleSense: Still Impossible

cattlenetwork.com

Producers are all too familiar with the daily realities behind the trend-lines that chart input costs. Many are finding cash flow, as well as net returns, influencing their purchasing decisions. But even with tight budgets and narrow margins, some basic purchases and practices continue to be sound investments. That includes strategic supplementation of forage-based diets. As the old saying goes, you can’t starve profit out of a cow.

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Grazing management and stockmanship clinic

Grazing management and stockmanship clinic

Southwest Farm Press

A ranching clinic focusing on grazing management and effective stockmanship, including low stress cattle handling methods, will be held on Wed., Sept. 23 at the Brackenridge Park Main Event Center, 284 Brackenridge Parkway, in Edna, from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. The clinic will provide information on grazing land management, address range recovery from drought, as well as current issues and topics important to ranch management and beef production. The Coastal Prairies Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative (GLCI), USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and Texas AgriLife Extension Service are hosting the clinic.

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Rep says House bill harmful to cattle

Rep says House bill harmful to cattle

James Beaty

McAlester News-Capital

A Pittsburg County state legislator is joining another state lawmaker to urge Oklahomans to oppose a bill in Congress they say will result in the deaths of more animals.

House Resolution 1549 would amend the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to ban the use of antibiotics for use to prevent animal diseases, or for “nontheraputic purposes.”

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UNL economist: Cattle prices will remain volatile

UNL economist: Cattle prices will remain volatile           

North Platte Bulletin

Price volatility and variations are still with cattle feeders, Jim Robb, Livestock Marketing Information Center Director said recently at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Gudmundsen Sandhills Laboratory Open House.

“We’re really in the worst recession or contraction since 1929,” Robb said. “Right now, on a year-to-year basis, the U.S. economy is shrinking at 3-4 percent compared to last year.”

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What cheaper corn means

What cheaper corn means

Harlan Hughes

BEEF Magazine

Ranchers clearly understand they’re at the mercy of the national bio-fuels policy. They also know full well how increasing corn prices the past three years have shrunk their ranching profits.

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Avoiding problems when converting pasture and hay land to crops

Avoiding problems when converting pasture and hay land to crops

Nevada Daily Mail

Current economics are favoring crops over beef cattle. So some producers are taking old pasture or hay fields and putting them into crop production. It is pretty simple to use a burn down herbicide, no-till plant herbicide-resistant beans and then spray again. But this doesn’t deal with some of the other issues that may occur on these fields.

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U.S. Has Opportunity to Sell Top End Beef

U.S. Has Opportunity to Sell Top End Beef

Hoosier AG Today

  Growing volumes of U.S. beef are anticipated to begin arriving in the European Union following agreement for a duty-free, high-quality beef quota. An expert with the U.S. Meat Export Federation says a lack of grain-fed beef in the market makes for a big opportunity. Thad Lively, senior vice president of policy, planning and research for USMEF, says the quota might not necessarily mean massive volumes but it does open the door to the highest value end of the market.

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