Can Commercial Cattlemen make AI Pay?
Troy Smith
SimTalk
Suppose you gathered up exactly 100 cow-calf producers representing a true cross-section of the commercial industry. And just suppose you asked all among the crowd who currently use artificial insemination in their operations to raise their hands. It’s likely there would be no more than eight hands waving in the air.
Posted in Uncategorized
Advocate or perish
Wes Ishmael
BEEF Magazine
“While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions toward new advances in agricultural science and technology, and pay more for food produced by the so-called organic methods, the 1 billion chronically undernourished people of the low-income, food-deficit nations cannot,” said Nobel Prize winner, Norman Borlaug in a 2001 speech. “With low-cost food supplies and urban bias, is it any wonder that affluent consumers don’t understand the complexities of reproducing the world food supply each year in its entirety, and expanding it further for the nearly 80 million additional mouths that are born into this world each year?
Posted in Uncategorized
Watch for poisonous weeds commonly found in hay
Krishona Martinson
University of Minnesota Extension
Minnesota is home to numerous toxic plants and weeds. Most weeds are not palatable and in a pasture, will be avoided by livestock if adequate forage is available. However, in hay, most livestock cannot differentiate weeds from beneficial long-stemmed forage, resulting in accidental ingestion and possibly a loss in performance or death.
Three weeds commonly found in Minnesota that remain toxic when dried in hay are hoary alyssum, wild parsnip and poison hemlock.
Posted in Uncategorized
Carcass Weights Falling
CME Daily Market Report
There maybe plenty of problems in the beef market at this time but feeders falling behind in their marketings does not seem to be one of them. The latest USDA report showed a continued decline in steer carcass weights and, as the chart below illustrates it, the decline in weights during the past four weeks has been quite dramatic for this time of year.
Posted in Uncategorized
Longhorn Cattle Are Prized By The Inch
WBUR
John Burnett
Texas longhorns — the cattle, not the college football team — have made a stunning comeback.
In 1964, there were believed to be fewer than 1,500 genuine longhorns in existence. Today, there are more than 330,000 in private herds scattered across the country.
The animals have grown popular among weekend ranchers who want a symbol of Western heritage but don’t want the work involved with regular cattle.
Posted in Uncategorized
US ranchers are wrangling over livestock
Erin Snelgrove
Yakima Herald
Dust billows in the sun-drenched sky as 600 cattle charge through the chute. They act as one, a writhing mass of legs and hooves. Flies swarm in their wake, and ranchers stand on alert, ready to jump into the fray if needed.
As each animal passes, its ear tag transmits data that’s entered into a national database, allowing authorities to track each animal from birth to death.
Posted in Uncategorized
Brazil says US to blame for rainforest deforestation
Judson Parker
Tallahassee Environmental News Examiner
On November 27, 2009, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said that "gringos" should pay Amazon nations to prevent deforestation, claiming rich Western nations have caused much of the environmental destruction.
According to a concept called Indirect Land Use Change, or ILUC, corn used for ethanol production in the United States cuts into American grain exports and thus provide a bigger market for competitors such as Brazil.
Posted in Uncategorized
