Video Feature: Baxter Black: A Denture-Stealing Dog

Baxter Black: A Denture-Stealing Dog

Baxter Black tells us about a denture-stealing dog. From US Farm Report

Mycotoxins Among Info to be Presented at Symposium

Mycotoxins Among Info to be Presented at Symposium

Cheryl Anderson

DTN

This year’s concerns over mycotoxins in corn and distillers grains are among the timely and vital topics that will be covered at the 14th annual Distillers Grains Symposium presented by the Distillers Grains Technology Council.

Mycotoxins in corn and DDGs, stemming from mold, will be discussed at this year’s Distillers Grains Symposium. (Photo courtesy Dirk Maier, Kansas State University)

The symposium will be held May 12-13 at the Sheraton Indianapolis Hotel and Suites in Indianapolis, Ind.

Full Story

Q&A Will cydectin injectable wormer kill the eggs in cattle?

Q&A Will cydectin injectable wormer kill the eggs in cattle?

Just Answer

Cydectin does not kill the eggs per se. It kills the worms that produce the eggs. The eggs are passed from the digestive system. These do not mature into adult worms fro the egg stage within the digestive tract.

Full Story

Meat, poultry industries await new antitrust rules

Meat, poultry industries await new antitrust rules

CHRISTOPHER LEONARD

Chicoer.com

Federal regulators are set to release the most sweeping antitrust rules covering the meat industry in decades, potentially altering the balance of power between meat companies and the farmers who raise their animals.

Activists, farmers and meat industry officials have been anxiously awaiting the new rules, which will be released this spring for public comment and are set to take effect this summer. The regulations are seen as a kind of litmus test for the Obama administration and how far it will go in regulating competition in the meat industry.

Full Story

U.S. standards on beef are lax, inspector general says

U.S. standards on beef are lax, inspector general says

Dugald McConnell

CNN

The U.S. government is not fully guarding against the contamination of meat by traces of antibiotics, pesticides or heavy metals, a new report warns.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s inspector general said federal agencies have failed to set limits on many potentially harmful chemical residues, which "has resulted in meat with these substances being distributed in commerce."

Full Story

Judge rejects Leachman bankruptcy plan

Judge rejects Leachman bankruptcy plan

Great Falls Tribune

A federal bankruptcy judge has ruled a cattle and horse breeder’s efforts to reorganize his finances have failed and the property must be sold.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ralph Kirscher made the ruling Friday in the case of James H. Leachman, who filed for bankruptcy protection last summer to save his two ranches east of Billings.

Full Story

5 Things You Need to Know About Grass-Fed Beef

5 Things You Need to Know About Grass-Fed Beef

Mark Maynard

The Daily Beast

The organic movement has taken the world by storm. But what’s truly healthy and what’s just hype? The manager of a grass-fed beef farm breaks it down.

With skeptical, beef-centric films like Food, Inc. and Fast Food Nation encouraging the American consumer to question the source of their meat, how do you know what to ask? Mark Maynard, farm manager of the Greyledge grass-fed beef farm, offers five basic queries that will help clear up a lot.

Full Story

Former Agriprocessors plant restarts operations

Former Agriprocessors plant restarts operations

Gazette Online

Agri Star Meat and Poultry is on track to rebuild a world-class kosher beef operation in Postville that will restore well-paying jobs and help cattle prices rebound for Iowa producers, officials said Tuesday.

Full Story

Cattle Grazing and the West’s Wasteland

Cattle Grazing and the West’s Wasteland

Anai Rhoads

Pressconnects.com

When we think about threats to wildlife in the West, hunting, logging and encroachment often top our lists. But most of us don’t realize there is a much greater threat, one supported by the United States government and paid for by taxpayers’ dollars – federal public lands ranching.

Full Story

Two Florida Farmers Opt Out of Animal Rights Battles

Two Florida Farmers Opt Out of Animal Rights Battles

Gail Shepherd

Broward Palm Beach

This week’s feature story details the escalating battle between Big Agriculture and the Humane Society, the organization behind a nationwide campaign to legislate the safety and comfort of farm animals.

Full Story

The Myth of Green Beef

The Myth of Green Beef

Helene York

The Atlantic Monthly

Editor’s note: Stories of this ilk are included in the blog to inform those in our industry how agriculture is being presented to and perceived by the public. It is hoped that our readers will respond to this article.

If I had to name one food that’s been in the hot seat over the past 30 years, it would be beef. Linked to cardiovascular disease and maligned for its industry’s dependence on federal corn subsidies, it now has a reputation as the Hummer of foods—an excessive contributor to environmental ills including climate change, nitrogen blooms, pollution, and depletion of Midwestern aquifers—not to mention E. coli contamination that has sickened and scared thousands.

Full Story

Rising meat prices help farmers, but will consumers bite?

Rising meat prices help farmers, but will consumers bite?

Greg Burns

Chicago Tribune

With the economy and the weather slowly improving, the barbecue grill beckons.

But the pork chops could be out of reach.

Sticker shock is arriving at a supermarket meat case near you, as cattle, hog and poultry prices soar in speculator-influenced commodity markets.

Full Story

Cattle Market: What Goes Up Comes Down

Cattle Market: What Goes Up Comes Down

Linda H. Smith

 Beef Today

The most exciting market right now is the red-hot cattle market, with feeders making it to the first line of overhead resistance at $117, says Jim Bower of Bower trading. “It has made quite a move in a short time.

Full Story

Weeds, weeds, weeds; how does my pasture grow?

Weeds, weeds, weeds; how does my pasture grow?

Robert Burns

North Texas e-news

Beef producers throughout Texas are having problems with cool-season weeds and will likely have problems with warm-season annual weeds as the year progresses, according to reports from Texas AgriLife Extension Service personnel.

Full Story

Crossbreeding Provides Benefits to Breeding Programs

Crossbreeding Provides Benefits to Breeding Programs

Heather Smith Thomas

Cattle Today

Many commercial stockmen take advantage of heterosis (hybrid vigor) by crossbreeding. Research in the early 1900’s demonstrated the benefits, which include breed complementation (combining some of the desired traits from two or more breeds, to gain characteristics that were lacking in one of the parent breeds) and heterosis.

Full Story