Time for meat scientists to ‘stand and fight’: Gary Smith
Penn State Meat Science and Muscle Foods blog
Meat scientists have the knowledge to be at the forefront of debunking the misperceptions of the industry; now they need to develop the communications skills to do so effectively, says Gary C. Smith, Monfort Endowed Chair in Meat Science at Colorado State University since 1990.
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FDA Seeks to Limit Antimicrobial Use in Animals
Beef Today
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued draft guidance intended to help reduce the development of resistance to medically important antimicrobial drugs used in food-producing animals.
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Maintain Proper Records to Prove “Profit” is the Motive
John Alan Cohan, Attorney at Law
Cattle Today
Many years ago a federal court defined the word “profit” as “the advantage or gain resulting from the investment of capital, or the acquisition of money beyond the amount expended; a pecuniary gain.”
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BVD and all that comes with
Kenny Barrett Jr., DVM, MS
Tri State Livestock News
Beef cattle practice is slowing down across the upper Midwest and Great Plains. Most of the herd bulls have been tested for breeding soundness. Many have been turned out while some are awaiting their special day. Producers are busy putting up hay and fretting over rain.
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Local ranchers’ naturally fed cattle are in demand
Lisa McKinnon
Vcstar.com
As farmers turned ranchers, father and son John and Shane Watkins have knowingly broken one of the unwritten rules of raising cattle for meat: Do not name the animals in your herd.
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Young Cattlemen’s Tour Connects Feed to Fork
Shannon Sollinger
Lancaster Farming
Whitestone Farm here served up dinner recently — Angus steaks, no surprise — to the 31st annual Young Cattlemen’s Conference, the leadership initiative of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
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Northern Beef Packs plant granted a reprieve
KSFY
The South Dakota Banking Commission granted a reprieve on Tuesday for the Northern Beef Packers plant in Aberdeen.
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US Risks Losing Export Market To Colombia
Thebeefsite.com
“Despite the fact that Colombia has been the largest market for US agriculture exports in South America and the third-largest market in the Western hemisphere, behind only Canada and Mexico, we have lost significant market share in just a short period,” said USGC Chairman Rick Fruth.
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Wet weather forces cattlemen to make changes
Lura Roti
The Cattle Business Weekly
What used to be a simple task of moving cow/calf pairs from calving pasture to summer pasture, turned into a complex process for northeastern South Dakota cattleman, Cortney Dinger this spring.
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Manure Provides Higher Returns Than Chemical Fertilizers, Economist Says
Science Daily
No significant differences in corn yield were found between organic and chemical sources of nutrients, but a Texas AgriLife Research economist said manure generates higher economic returns than anhydrous ammonia.
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Why Fat Doesn’t Make for Flavorful Steak
The Atlantic
"Fat is flavor." I presume you’re familiar with this phrase—nay, mantra. You may have even uttered it. "Fat is flavor" is what you might call a core grilling value, the one rule about red meat that everyone can agree on. Its universality is such that you almost expect to find "fat is flavor" enshrined in the Constitution.
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Stemple Creek Ranch: home to happy cows and grass-fed beef
Anne Pao
San Francisco Examiner
San Francisco is a city that treats eating with the utmost responsibility. Vegetarian? Nowadays it is more about being vegan, gluten-free, and if you eat red meat, it better be locally-raised, hormone-free and grass-fed.
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Beefmaster Cattle Will be Part of New Research Project
Cattle Today
Through generous donations from Beefmaster breeders, a herd bull, 22 heifers, semen and embryos have been donated to the Animal Science Program at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas.
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Foodborne Pathogens On Cattle Hides
Thebeefsite.com
At abattoirs, certain microbial contamination of bovine carcasses during slaughter and dressing operations is inevitable and occurs at abattoirs in spite of adherence to process hygiene principles.
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South Dakota rancher still missing cattle
The Cattle Business Weekly
KELOLAND News reports a rancher in Roberts County, South Dakota is missing thousands of dollars worth of cattle.
Al Vetter last saw 11 now missing calves May 28 and the only thing he can tell you for sure about their disappearance is that they didn’t grow wings and fly away.
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Baxter Black, DVM: FOOD DESERTS
Many of us in the food producing business are watching with a suspicious eye, Mrs. Obama’s pending federally funded efforts to combat obesity in children.
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Steve Cornett: Competition Rule Casualties
Beef Today
If you didn’t believe that the Obama administration meant to declare war on conventional agriculture, you should have been sitting in on the press conference when Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Dudley Butler, head of the Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA), announced their proposed new rules governing producer-processor relations.
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How to Add Gates, Corrals for a Fraction of the Cost
By Boyd Kidwell
Progressive Farmer/DTN
When John Brewer sees metal objects headed to the scrap pile, light bulbs go off in his brain like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Immediately, the cattleman from Oxford, N.C., visualizes new corrals, smooth-working handling facilities and strong pasture gates. When sunlight glitters on discarded steel, his welding arm starts twitching.
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Antimicrobial resistance
David L. Morris, DVM, Ph.D.
The Fence Post
Antimicrobials are critical tools in promoting both animal and human health. Because animals, humans and the potential microbes that are associated with disease and those that do not cause disease are all biological organisms, dynamic processes for survival of each occur continuously
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Meat Industry Insists Everything is A-OK With Antibiotic Use, Despite Everyone Else’s Conclusion That It Isn’t
Melanie Warner
Bnet
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.
The FDA’s guidelines on antibiotic use in meat production formalize what many government officials, scientists, doctors and even consumers have known for years — that antibiotic use in agriculture has gotten out of hand and should be curtailed.
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