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The beef industry may be stricken with its occasional three-alarm crises, be they in the form of pink slime, animal rights activists or the return of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, but the bones of every cattleman are steeled with fiery survival.
Few other professions handle natural or fabricated challenges quite like the men and women in the beef industry, where “taking the bull by the horns” is more than a descriptive idiom, but a practical routine in ranch life.
But as well equipped as today’s rancher may be for the daily grind, it’s more apparent each year that the industry’s future is at risk.
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The chief executive of Brazil’s JBS SA, the world’s biggest beef producer, said the company is on the verge of exiting Argentina.
The reasons pivot largely around government restrictions and high labor costs. JBS’ Argentine subsidiary, Swift, has closed five of its six slaughterhouses in Argentina, the last one as recently as February. The remaining slaughterhouse in Rosario is the company’s largest in Argentina.
“We’ve been leaving Argentina over time,” JBS Chief Executive Wesley Batista said in a conference call to discuss fourth-quarter earnings.
In 2012, the law allows 50 percent first-year bonus depreciation for qualifying new assets that have a tax life of 20 years or less. The “placed-in-service” deadline is Dec. 31, 2012.
Cattle markets have made a mild retreat this spring with fats and feeders dropping back about $10 from their most recent record highs in late winter.
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It’s unclear whether the market simply needs to catch its breath or if demand cannot maintain the inflated levels.
Just a few short weeks after the lean finely textured beef (LFTB) debacle started to subside, the beef industry confronted another consumer-sensitive food safety concern from a much more familiar villain.
Every year ranchers all across the country have to fix or rebuild worn out stretches of fence. Whether a person likes it or not, we know this job has to be done.
We also know the cost of building and maintaining fences is expensive. In fact, it is one of the most expensive outputs associated with any grazing program.
It is hard to ignore the signs of feedlot expansion in the Upper Midwest.
Over the past year, cattle-on-feed numbers have increased in many of the Upper Midwest states, and this is in spite of increasing corn and feeder calf prices.
My generation is what some call “Millennials.”
We are a generation that is reliant upon technology and instant communication. We sometimes ask too many questions and can be exceedingly passionate in our interests and endeavors.
