Steve Cornett: Plainview Workers’ "Emancipation"
Beef Today
This is a story I wish I had written. It is a story I want Michael Pollan and all his technophobic beef-hating fans to read. It is about the people who were—let me burrow into the foodies’ mindset here for a moment—"emancipated" from their jobs when Cargill closed its plant in Plainview, Texas.
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Forages: Underappreciated and undervalued
Mycattle.com
Ask any person that raises beef cattle to provide a description of what they do, you will likely hear terms such as "cattleman", "rancher", "cow-calf producer", or "stocker" just to name a few.
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Low-stress Stockmanship
Kasey Miller
4cattlemen.com
The beef industry may change often, but the one thing that never changes is the need for stockmanship, Curt Pate told Cattlemen’s College participants at the 2013 Cattle Industry Convention in Tampa, Fla. Good stockmanship increases profit for the rancher and quality of life for the animal, and satisfies consumers’ desire for accountability.
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Limit Feeding Cows in the Absence of Distillers Grains
University of Nebraska
The drought this year has left many producers with a limited supply of high and medium quality hay. University of Nebraska recommendations have included mixing low quality forages such as ground wheat straw, cornstalks, or Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) hay with corn distillers grains and limit feeding that diet to confined cows.
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EPA releases producer information to activist groups
Joplin Regional Stockyards
Early this week the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) was notified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that the agency had been collecting information from states on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). This information was requested by extremist groups, including Earth Justice, the Pew Charitable Trust and the Natural Resources Defense Council through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and granted to them.
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Number of U.S. farm operations continues to decline
John Maday
AG Professional
The number of U.S. farms and acreage in farmland continued to decline in 2012, although larger operations grew in number and acreage according to an annual report from the USDA. The number of beef-cow operations, listed at 729,000, was down by 1 percent, and dairy, swine, sheep and goat operations also declined somewhat.
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Rotating a Calf at Parturition to Aid in Delivery
The Stock Exchange
Throughout the course of a calving season, some heifers and a few cows may need assistance at calving time. If the heifer is not making real progress within one hour of the first appearance of the water bag or baby calf feet, she probably will need assistance.
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Food Safety Inspector Furloughs Worry Nebraska Ag
Megan Johnson
1101
A series of automatic spending cuts are set to begin on March 1 if Congress doesn’t pass a budget.
The process is called "sequestration" and cuts spending across many federal departments including the USDA.
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U.S. deserves top mad-cow rating, health officials say
Charles Abbott
Reuters
The United States is expected to get the top safety rating for mad cow disease in spring, under a recommendation from international livestock health experts that was greeted on Wednesday as a sure-fire boost to U.S. beef exports.
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‘Connect the dots’ for cattle profit is not so easy
MIRANDA REIMAN
The Prairie Star
Childhood dot-to-dots are simple and straightforward with an easy plan for getting from the starting point to the end and complete the picture.
In the beef industry, connecting those dots among segments is not always so clear.
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