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There’s one thing I simply must buy every year: The Old Farmer’s Almanac. In this digital age you’ll know it’s the end of the world when the Almanac ceases to exist or goes totally digital.
The 2012 edition is the 220th consecutive U.S. edition. Yes, it’s been printed continuously for 220 of the 236 years we’ve been a free country!
Besides the weather forecasts, planting tables and schedules of tides, eclipses and gestation found in every issue, in 2012 we’re told the best days to quit smoking, castrate, pollinate, graft (for congressmen) and the best days to see a dentist.
Just because some women have an occupation involving farming and livestock, it doesn’t mean they are not concerned about their appearance, hair, skin and body care. Kadie is one of them.
She’s on a family ranch in Montana. Both she and her husband share the calving duties in the spring, but cold windy weather plays havoc with her beauty regimen.
Last Christmas, she had clipped out an ad for a spa that included hot tubs, massage, pedicures, manicures and mud baths. She even posted a sample page from the ad on her bathroom mirror listing the services she might need.
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association (NCBA) submitted comments on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Marketing Service proposed rule pertaining to the beef checkoff program.
The proposed rule would expand contracting authority by eliminating the requirement that only allows organizations active and ongoing since 1985 to contract with the checkoff, allowing national non-profit, industry-governed organizations that have been representing the cattle industry for at least two years to be eligible to contract for the implementation of checkoff programs.
Congressman Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) joined with Representative Ron Kind (D-Wis.) in leading a bipartisan group of 68 lawmakers in sending a letter to U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Trade Ambassador Ron Kirk.
The group of lawmakers objects to ongoing protectionist trade restrictions by the Taiwanese government that are costing American beef and pork producers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost export trade.
Russia was the fifth largest export market for U.S. beef in 2011. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association and its affiliates believe a significant increase in U.S. beef exports to Russia is possible as a result of Russia's World Trade Organization (WTO) accession agreement.
The provisions in the WTO agreement include a large, country-specific beef quota and lower tariffs for high quality beef. Watty Taylor, a Montana rancher, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance on behalf of the Montana Stockgrowers Association.
For the third consecutive year, Pfizer Animal Health and the American Veterinary Medical Foundation (AVMF) continue their ongoing commitment to invest in the future of the veterinary profession, announcing the recipients of this year’s student scholarship program.
Pfizer awarded $2,500 each to 331 second- and third-year veterinary students at accredited universities throughout the U.S. and the Caribbean, for a total of $827,500.
After a week of intense media scrutiny over the use of lean, finely textured trimmings in school lunch ground beef, the USDA announced Thursday it won’t require school districts to take the product – and will provide different beef products next year as part of its National School Lunch Program.
But the federal agency also continued to defend the product as a safe food “for all consumers” and urged the public “to consult science-based information on the safety and quality” of the beef.
The decision came after school districts nationwide requested ground beef that doesn’t use “Lean Finely Textured Beef” or what industry meat processors have called lean beef trimmings in ground beef. The product earned heavy criticism in the past week after media reports used the term “pink slime” to describe the procedure making it the lean beef mixture.
Veteran rancher Keith Johnson has lived through droughts, blizzards and long stretches of poor prices.That makes him appreciate this winter even more. Beef prices have soared to record highs, reaching levels he describes as "unimaginable, the highest we've seen in our lifetime."He and his family recently sold 179 steers for an average price, after expenses at the auction barn, of $1,082 each. A year earlier, their steers sold for an average of about $800 each."This year's price was just absolutely unbelievable. It's sweet," says Johnson, who runs a cow-calf operation with his sons, Chris and Jeremy, and his brother, Wayne, near the town of Sharon.
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