The Congress could delay passage of a new five-year farm bill until spring planting given the full plate of legislation needed after the election to avoid a fiscal cliff with its mandatory U.S. budget cuts, a top farm policy expert said on Monday."My prediction is that we will get a farm bill by April 2013. It will look very close to the Senate version," Barry Flinchbaugh, a Kansas State University agricultural economist who advises legislators on shaping U.S. farm bills, told an agricultural bankers meeting.  

This year’s edition of the South Central Texas Cow Calf Clinic in Brenham featured a lot of optimism and interest in the outlook for beef cattle production in the months ahead – a stark contrast to 2011 when ranchers in Washington County and surrounding areas were devastated by drought conditions.

For the fourth consecutive year, Pfizer Animal Health and the American Veterinary Medical Foundation (AVMF) invite second- and third-year students of veterinary medicine to apply for the Pfizer Animal Health Scholarship. A minimum of 330 scholarships of $2,000 each will be awarded to students in colleges of veterinary medicine in the U.S. and the Caribbean. Scholarships will be awarded to students in all areas of study, including food animal medicine, equine and small animal medicine, research, academia, and government services, among others.

Kansas cattle farmers are being forced to sell off some or all of their herds because the prolonged drought has burned up pastures and driven grain prices sharply higher. The USDA reported that the number of cattle headed to Kansas feedlots in September was the lowest on record for that month, down 25 percent from September 2011. The number of cattle sold by feedlots to packers in the state fell 17 percent from a year ago and tied for the worst month ever. The Wichita Eagle reported that the industry had expected a steep drop for months.

With national beef cattle inventory at lows not seen since the 1950s, the time could be right for producers of Brahman-influenced cattle to adopt a fixed-time artificial insemination method which could add thousands of dollars in net value to a calf crop, according to researchers.

The American Hereford Association (AHA) announces a breed-specific DNA profile enabling genomic-enhanced expected progeny differences (GE-EPDs). In partnership with GeneSeek, a Neogen Corporation Company, the Hereford GE-EPDs are powered initially by the GeneSeek Bovine 50K and soon available through the GeneSeek Genomic Profiler (GGP). The availability of the Hereford GE-EPDs is a direct result of a multi-year collaboration between AHA, National Beef Cattle Evaluation Consortium (NBCEC), the USDA, Meat Animal Research Center, Iowa State University, global Hereford associations and GeneSeek.

AMES, Iowa — As cow-calf and feedlot operators continue to deal with drought related issues, Iowa State University Extension and Outreach and the Iowa Beef Center will continue to offer educational opportunities to address ongoing and emerging issues. 

When the people at Beef Bucks, Inc. were notified that their pre-paid debit card for purchasing beef will again be featured as a gift tag on the Wheel of Fortune – —this time during the popular game show’'s “Salute to Military Families” week in November – —they decided to do their part to salute veterans closer to home. For the second year in a row, television viewers across the U.S. will tune in to see whether or not a Wheel of Fortune contestant is lucky enough to spin the wheel and land on the prize consisting of $1,000 in Beef Bucks.

ABS Global Inc. has acquired an elite group of Angus females backed by three decades of feed efficiency testing and ABS proven genetics. The cows were acquired through the Wardens Farm Complete Dispersion Sale, held in September near Council Bluffs, Iowa. In addition to feed efficiency selection for the last 30 years, the Wardens Farm program has emphasized calving ease, carcass merit and overall performance.