Video Feature: What Animal Activist Success Means to the Beef Producers – Steven L. Kopperud

The Beef Cattle Institute at Kansas State University

    Steven L. Kopperud is senior vice president of Policy Directions, Inc., a Washington, DC government affairs company specializing in production agriculture, agribusiness, animal health, food, farm policy, trade and ag research/health-related issues.

    As an authority on activist assaults on animal agriculture, Kopperud has spoken to audiences in the U.S., Canada, Australia and Latin America on threats to food production. He coordinates the Farm Animal Welfare Coalition and is the immediate past president of the Animal Agriculture Alliance, a national charitable education foundation dedicated to telling the American public the reality of modern livestock production.

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Enhancing profits while managing risk for 2008’s calf crop

A. DiCostanzo, U of M Beef Team

Minnesota Farm Guide

Summer is a good time to start thinking of marketing the 2008 calf crop.

Mandatory COOL will go into effect Sept. 30, 2008, and packers and beef retailers will need to provide country of origin of the product they will be selling.

Additionally, price conditions for cattle and corn in 2008 have defied all odds. Increasing corn prices since the 2007 corn harvest were expected to have a negative impact on feeder prices.

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UNL provides online spreadsheet, Tool helps determine cost/benefit of using distillers grains

High Plains Journal

University of Nebraska-Lincoln specialists have developed a spreadsheet to help feedlot managers calculate costs and benefits of feeding ethanol co-products in their own operations, said Terry Klopfenstein, UNL professor of animal science.

Klopfenstein said that feedlots save a $40 per ton processing fee when they use wet distillers grains. That also reduces the fossil fuels needed to produce them. Cattle like the wet product better and the feed value is probably higher, he added.

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Modified cattle feed may prevent mad cow disease

U of A scientists hope to give immunity to BSE

Sheila Pratt,

The Edmonton Journal

In the not-so-distant future, Dr. Nat Kav hopes to be in a greenhouse tending a special crop of plants that could inoculate cattle against mad cow disease.

Kav, an associate professor in the University of Alberta agriculture department, says the idea is to give cattle protection against bovine spongiform encepthalopathy by growing antibodies to the disease in plants they eat.

Kav and U of A biochemistry Prof. Michael James are working with Swiss researchers as part of the international effort to understand BSE, a relatively new disease.

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Finer Points Of Summer Grazing Discussed

Beef Magazine

Beef producers´ recent, challenging financial climate has many taking a closer look at the way they operate. One thing producers could consider rethinking is their summer grazing system, a Kansas State University (KSU) researcher says.

“No matter what system is used, the stocking rate is key,” says Bob Gillen, head of KSU´s Western Agricultural Research Centers. “When considering the number of cow-calf pairs a producer can put on summer pasture, it´s important to consider the fewest acres a grazing animal needs to meet performance targets.

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Ethanol’s redemption? Distillers grain may ease food fears

Faith Bremner •

Argus Leader

When VeraSun Energy this week reported a 50 percent increase in second-quarter earnings, part of that boost in profits had nothing to do with selling ethanol.

Distillers grain, a byproduct of the process of making ethanol, is becoming an ever-larger part of those companies’ revenue, and some say it can play a key role in limiting the effects of ethanol on food prices.

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Ethanol byproduct makes for good eating, if you’re a cow

FAITH BREMNER

Daily Record

WASHINGTON — Ethanol producers will use about a quarter of the U.S. corn crop this year, an amount that alarms ranchers and poultry producers who depend on corn to feed their animals.

As the demand for corn and energy costs climb, so do prices at the grocery store.

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Marbling to Top the Market

Becky Mills

Angus Journal

It was a case of good news, bad news when Donny Stephens got the closeout sheets from his first experience with retained ownership. Eight years ago, the Marion Junction, Ala., producer and his wife, Pat, sent a load of steers to Decatur County Feedyard, a Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB)-licensed feedlot near Oberlin, Kan.

“They gained great but didn’t grade as well,” Stephens recalls. “We had a lot of Selects and not as many Choice cattle. That headed us in the direction of Angus.”

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Farmers absorb latest from new media, Podcasts, YouTube discuss techniques for grazing, breeding

Jenni Glenn

The Journal Gazette

Think of it as moo media.

Cattle farmers anywhere in the world can pull up YouTube’s Web site and watch Purdue University’s videos on grazing and breeding techniques. The collection’s most popular video has been downloaded more than 2,200 times in eight months.

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OCA has new officers, resolutions

Doug Rich

High Plains Journal

The Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association (OCA) passed two new resolutions at their recent annual meeting at Midwest City.

OCA members passed a new resolution on beef checkoff enhancement. The resolution states OCA will support the conclusions of the Industry-Wide Beef Checkoff Task Force, which calls for the following:

1. Opportunity to petition for referendum.

2. Producer opportunity to vote for an adjustment of the checkoff rate to $2 per head.

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Canada finds 15th case of BSE in cow

The Prairie Star

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has confirmed bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in a six-year-old beef cow from Alberta. No part of the animal’s carcass entered the human food or animal feed systems.

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Humane Society of the United States’ image reshaped by beef recall

By BEN GOAD and JANET ZIMMERMAN

The Press-Enterprise

By documenting the mistreatment of cows at a Chino slaughterhouse, The Humane Society of the United States wanted to spark tougher animal protections and long-sought changes in federal meat inspection policies.

In the process, the group reshaped its own image.

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Beyond seed and soil: Farmers’ high-tech tools increase productivity

DANA HERRA

Daily Chronicle

Bert Hueber may use an ultrasound machine for his job, but he doesn’t work for a hospital or a medical clinic.

Hueber is a partner in Beef Performance Technology, and takes the ultrasound machine and the “heavy-duty laptop” connected to it to cattle operations around the area.

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Peterson discusses bovine TB management plan

Brad Swenson

Bemidji Pioneer

The U.S. Department of Agriculture could declare Minnesota a split state for bovine tuberculosis control within weeks, U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson said Saturday.

“We expect by the end of this month or the first of September that the split-state status will be approved by USDA,” Peterson, DFL-7th District, said in an interview Saturday. “As far as I know, everything is on track to do that.”

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COOL law comes, finally

Capital AG Press

Country-of-origin labeling for most fresh and frozen agricultural commodities takes effect Sept. 30, four years after the first deadline set by Congress.

It’s been almost a decade after populist groups in the cattle industry first talked up the concept as a way to encourage consumers to eat beef born and raised in the United States.

The law exempts ingredients in processed foods and exempts restaurants from labeling food they sell.

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