While some producers struggle to stay afloat in what seems to be an unprofitable business, there are plenty of ranches defying the odds.

Another needle has moved in events leading up to the long-awaited re-opening of U.S. beef access to China. On May 11, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a press release marking the first sign of progress on the 100-day action plan President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping called for during their meeting last month. And first in line is U.S. beef.

Selection used to be entirely phenotypic. Everybody was an expert in structural evaluation and based decisions off what was seen by the naked eye. Then came the performance movement of the 1960s and ’70s, and the industry shifted to modern evaluation systems and selection tools such as expected progeny differences (EPDs) as a large part of their selection.

Recording information electronically is supposed to make things easier, but what many don’t understand is: Electronics are about to make things a lot more complicated in the livestock world.

Don Haskins and Howard Putnam. These names might not mean much to you, but for college basketball and Southwest Airlines they were game-changers.

Don Close is a senior analyst in Rabobank, focusing on the animal protein sector. He has more than three decades of experience in agribusiness, having worked as a buyer, broker, analyst and other capacities within the industry.

Sixty. It’s the amount of minutes Mike Wallace had in the popular investigative reporting series; it’s the beginning range for a normal resting heart rate in adults; and it’s the amount of sugar in a Jamba Juice banana berry smoothie.

Selecting a cover crop mix is a lot like buying a bull: There are many good options to choose from, but not all of those options fit your environment, your goals and, better yet, your pocketbook.

Common questions among producers at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) Cattle Industry Convention (CIC) included: “What didn’t the CattleFax analysts see when they were standing on the stage last year at the NCBA convention? And, what were the things that changed?”