Beef Being Blamed (again)
Troy Hadrick
Voices of Agriculture
My wife Stacy and I were in Chicago this past week attending a Young Farmers and Ranchers committee meeting. We went in a day early so that we could see some of the sights in town. Only one other time had we been to the Windy City, but on that first trip we visited the Chicago Field Museum. I really enjoy visiting museums and so we decided that was going to be the first stop of the day.
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Study Shows Preconditioned Calves Earn Premiums
Beef Today
A study of prices received on calves sold through seven video auction sales in 2008 reveals that cattle producers received the highest premiums since 1995 on VAC45 and VAC PreCon calves, and the second highest premium on VAC34 calves.
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Baxter Black, DVM: CHARLOTTE, THE GPS
Lately I’ve been packing a GPS locator when I’m checking cows. Now I can find my way back to the horse trailer! But the GPS in rent cars with all the streets and highways displayed turns my blood cold.
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Tips to Becoming More Efficient in Cow-Calf Business
Dr. Scott P. Greiner, Extension Animal Scientist, VA Tech
Becoming more efficient is a necessary step to weathering the current economic conditions of the cattle business. Since 2008, we are all fully aware of the decrease in cattle prices and simultaneous rise in input costs to historic levels. While none of us can control market prices and volatility, through our management practices we can control the impact of these external forces on our bottom line.
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The Cows are Not Happy, and Neither Are The Farmers
Gary Truitt
Hoosier AG Today
I don’t have a lot of sympathy for some of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that is being done by banks, businesses, auto makers, and realtors over the state of the economy and terrible financial shape their industries are in. Compared to what is going on in the dairy and pork industries, these sectors are (if you will pardon the expression) living high on the hog.
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McCain attacks agricultural spending
MARC HELLER
Watertown Daily Times
Cows were a tempting punchline Monday for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., as he picked on an agriculture spending bill moving through the Senate.
Railing against millions of dollars in pork-barrel spending, Mr. McCain zeroed in on a $372,000 study of dairy profitability in Pennsylvania — one of a few items in the bill related to the milk business.
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Judge hears dispute over bison migration
The Westerner
Cattle producers say allowing bison that aren’t tested for brucellosis to migrate onto Horse Butte Peninsula near Yellowstone National Park threatens the Montana beef industry. The producers on Tuesday asked District Judge John Brown in Bozeman to force the state to remove bison from the area more quickly than in recent years. Brown has not ruled on the case.
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Farm fame: Q&A with sustainable farmer Joel Salatin
Joel Salatin and his land have become symbols of the local food movement.
Lindsey Nair
Roanoke Times
In 2006, journalist Michael Pollan published a book that challenged the way food is produced and consumed in America.
"The Omnivore’s Dilemma" not only made Pollan a household name, it shined a light on a Shenandoah Valley farmer named Joel Salatin, who had been using and advocating sustainable agricultural techniques, such as rotational grazing of cattle, his entire career.
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Growing local-farm movement expanding to meat
Wes Little
CNN
In a parking lot in suburban Atlanta, customers mill in the summer heat, waiting for freezer bags full of beef, pork, chicken and other meats.
The draw that pulled them away from their grocery store and to the tailgate of a packed freezer truck? The meat is from animals raised naturally on a small family farm just two hours away.
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Procedures to claim livestock losses change
Peabody Gazette-Bulletin
The 2008 Farm Bill created several new disaster programs.
One is the Livestock Indemnity Program, which compensates producers for livestock deaths in excess of normal mortality because of adverse weather from Jan. 1, 2008 through Oct. 1, 2011.
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The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-intellectuals
Blake Hurst
The American
Farming has always been messy and painful, and bloody and dirty. It still is. This is something the critics of industrial farming never seem to understand.
I’m dozing, as I often do on airplanes, but the guy behind me has been broadcasting nonstop for nearly three hours. I finally admit defeat and start some serious eavesdropping. He’s talking about food, damning farming, particularly livestock farming, compensating for his lack of knowledge with volume.
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New Information on Multi-animal Pathogen
Thebeefsite.com
Streptococcus agalactiae (also called Group B Streptococcus, or GBS) is a versatile pathogen that affects a variety of animals. Now studies by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and their university colleagues are revealing new information about this pathogen.
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Replacement Heifer Development Steps
Dr. Mark A. McCann, Extension Animal Scientist, VA Tech
Few management items exert a greater influence on the productivity of your beef cattle herd over time more than replacement heifer selection and development. Many cattlemen’s best and worst memories are related to the success or failures of their replacement heifers.
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A&M Cattle Class Discusses Economy, Beef Prices
KBTX
The cattle business isn’t easy and this week over 1500 folks descended upon Texas A&M to get the latest in cattle innovations.
"We all have the same issues dealing with the same situations. Down here you get to see what A&M is teaching and things of that nature," said Jarvis Kessee, a rancher from Louisiana.
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ASCC Brings Out the Best of Angus
Thebeefsite.com
The top groups in the 2008 AngusSource Carcass Challenge (ASCC) “blew the doors off” average quality grades, says programme director Sara Snider.
Three feedlots won more than $1,000 in cash and prizes for first through fifth place finishes during the inaugural year of the contest. Entries consisted of at least 38 head of age-, source- and genetic-verified calves fed through the network of Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB)-licensed partners. “Our goal was to illustrate the value of those calves in the feedyard and recognize those procuring AngusSource calves and targeting the brand,” Snider says.
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