The U.S. beef herd has been shrinking and the worst drought in decades has only encouraged that trend to continue. The USDA's midyear cattle inventory report showed beef cow numbers dropped by 3 percent in the last year. It projects the 2012 calf crop to be down 2 percent from last year and down 8 percent since 2006.

The EPA announced last week that it will begin weighing requests for a suspension of the nationwide ethanol mandate, which requires that gasoline contain 10 percent ethanol. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor report released Aug. 16, 87 percent of the corn-growing areas are experiencing some degree of drought, with more than half of those areas experiencing extreme to exceptional drought. As conditions worsen, the cost of corn and other crops has skyrocketed. The crisis has prompted Democratic governors from Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina and Arkansas to join the agricultural industry in a push for a waive of the ethanol mandate.

The Texas Section Society for Range Management’s annual meeting will be Oct. 10-12, according to Ken Cearley of Amarillo, Texas AgriLife Extension Service wildlife specialist and this year’s Texas Section president.

Livestock Grain and Market News feeder cattle summary for Aug. 24.  

As summer wraps up, agricultural youth nationwide have been busy competing in 4-H and junior livestock events. Showing livestock and participating in these competitions provides the opportunity for young people to build lifelong skills they can carry forward in their careers and their daily life.

Bart Schott, a Kulm, North Dakota farmer, serves as chairman of the Corn Board of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA). He is also a U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance board member (one of the chairmen). Jeff Fowle is a third-generation family farmer and rancher from Etna, California. He raises registered Angus cattle, Percheron draft horses, warmbloods, alfalfa and alfalfa-grass hay and some grain. Fowle was a panelist at USFRA’s Los Angeles The Food Dialogues panel – “Hollywood and Vine: The Intersection of Pop Culture and Food Production.” Click here to see the panel online. 

To see progress in the beef industry, you have to measure where it was and where it is now. Twenty years ago, when the National Beef Quality Audit began, the area most in need of improvement was with the product itself. What customers were buying didn’t always equate to a pleasurable dining experience. Two decades later, those culinary targets are being met more favorably. And as far as the beef audit is concerned, those criteria remain a priority, along with other areas such as food safety, sustainable and ethical production, genetic quality and size of cattle.