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Nobody can illustrate cattle comfort better than, well, a comfortable cow.
Even the best speakers can’t make an audience feel what it’s like on a farm. There are no words that can replace the actual experience of seeing cattle firsthand – watching them roam the pasture or eat out of the feedbunk.
That’s why Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) has a newfound tradition of sorts. Nearly every time sales partners travel to the Wooster, Ohio-based headquarters for training and education, the company takes them on a field trip.
The headline reads, “Beef prices skyrocket.” A little more information comes with, “Wholesale beef prices at record levels.” Another adds, “Beef exports up 7 percent in two months.”
Thousands of Taiwanese farmers staged a raucous protest Thursday against a government plan to allow the import of U.S. beef containing a growth drug, challenging the island's president to "say no" to Washington.The protest outside Taiwan's ornate legislative building came as newly re-elected President Ma Ying-jeou seeks to strengthen ties with the U.S. by resolving the long-standing beef dispute. The beef issue has stalled trade talks crucial to keeping up the island's competitive edge in global trade.
Beef safety professionals reaffirmed their commitment to “further reduce the risks associated with foodborne pathogens by utilizing scientifically proven production practices and technologies” during the 10th annual Beef Industry Safety Summit in Tampa, Florida, March 7-9. The pledge taken by the 250 in attendance was similar to one signed by those at the first summit, held in San Antonio, Texas, in 2003.
The first step in achieving goals is to set them. That’s why feedyard managers aim for the best live and harvested performance, and that means a few points better than last year. Carcass value is especially important to those who sell cattle on a grid.
“With 20 years of experience in the hay industry, we searched worldwide for a better way than hay tarps for covering hay. We didn’t find it so we invented Hay Caps,” says Phil Snowden, hay farmer and inventor of Hay Caps.
Hay Caps are innovative and simple covers made for large square bales sold to the dairy industry. Hay Caps are a proven solution with over 600 farmers using Hay Caps in Australia. Most farmers do not enjoy the hassle and safety hazard of climbing on top of a hay stack to apply a tarp and having to replace tarps every season or two.
Drought conditions in the Southwest are waning, but not over yet, according to a weather official speaking for CattleFax at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association annual convention in Nashville on Feb. 3.
Art Douglas, a Creighton University meteorologist and forecaster for CattleFax, told NCBA attendees in the CattleFax Outlook seminar that oceanic conditions indicate the La Niña pattern prevalent over the past two years are wearing off.
Warming off waters of South America and Mexico show indications that an El Niño pattern will be developing for 2012. Numerical models from U.S. and Europe, Argentina and Australia are also showing warming trends.
CattleFax export market analyst Brett Stuart told National Cattlemen’s Beef Association trade show producers in Nashville on Feb. 3, that the record $4.7 billion trade for U.S. beef shows “how truly competitive we are in the global marketplace.”
Figuring that the 2011 trade amount was actually $6.9 million when including hides, variety meat and offal, the math actually adds $261 per head due to foreign trade, he said. That’s up from $201 per head in 2010, and $149 per head in 2009.
The record levels may cause some producers to question the strategy of relying on global buyers, Stuart noted. But when compared to the domestic market, the sale of U.S. beef overseas adds diversity to the marketplace and insulates producers from some volatility.
Having liquidated roughly 1 million beef cows in the past year, the U.S. cattle industry has incentives to rebuild the herd – if Mother Nature cooperates, said CattleFax analyst Kevin Good to producers at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association annual convention.
Speaking at the Feb. 3 CattleFax Outlook Seminar in Nashville, Tennessee, Good said calf prices are set to climb another 15 percent in the coming year.
“From an economic standpoint, the incentive is going to be there to expand,” Good said.
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