News Update

News Update
October 23, 2007

North Dakota Angus Carcass Challenge Accepts Entries

The North Dakota Angus Association is now accepting entries for the third annual North Dakota Angus Carcass Challenge (NDACC). Commercial and registered producers are encouraged to enter five or more head of Angus-sired cattle in the contest. Prize money will be awarded to the producer with the top four head.

Entries are to be placed by Nov. 15 and delivered Dec. 1. Calves will be finished at Decatur County Feeders, a commercial Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB)-licensed feedlot in Kansas. Individual carcass data will be collected by the North Dakota Angus Association and returned to the producers.

Winners will be determined by placing harvest data on a fixed value contest grid. Prize money will be awarded to the producer with the best four North Dakota-derived calves. There is no fee for entering cattle in the contest.

Educational seminars on the use of carcass data for genetic selection and herd advancement will also be provided as one component of the NDACC. Complete contest results from the 2007 contest will be presented at the Carcass Kindergarten during the North Dakota Angus Association’s annual convention and banquet Nov. 16 at the Seven Seas, Mandan, N.D.

— Release courtesy of the North Dakota Angus Association.

USDA Expects Modest Growth in Exports to Japan

Unless there is an import policy change, Japan is expected to import about 71,400 metric tons of U.S. beef in 2008, up from a projected 57,000 metric tons in 2007, according to MeatingPlace.com. Those projections are from an annual livestock report by Kakuyu Obara, an agricultural specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agriculture Service. Sales from 2007 will be approximately six times larger than in 2006, but 2007 figures are approximately one-eighth of 2001 sales.

In the report, Obara predicted Japan would import 1% less Australian beef in 2008, or about 557,000 metric tons, down from a projected 564,000 metric tons in 2007 and a 3% drop from 2006. He linked the Australian drop to growing U.S. imports, according to MeatingPlace.

Obara forecast both Japanese beef consumption and total imports would grow a modest 1% in 2008. He put total Japanese beef imports at 735,000 metric tons and total beef consumption at 1.23 million metric tons.

U.S. beef imports to Japan are constrained by the available supply of U.S. beef that can be verified under USDA’s Export Verification (EV) program, used to identify animals that meet Japan’s 20-months-or-younger restriction implemented when Japan reopened its market to U.S. beef in July 2006.

Obara also noted that while U. S. grain-fed beef has contributed to resumed sales by beef bowl and Korean-style barbecue chains, limited supply and high prices for popular specific cuts such as short plate, chuckeye roll and some offal items has hampered some major foodservice end users from expanding their U.S. beef use.

The United States has been pressing Japan to lift its 20-month age restriction on U.S. beef exports. A number of resignations by Japanese Ministry of Agriculture officials have slowed the talks.

USDA Releases Agricultural Weather Outlook

USDA’s Joint Ag Weather Facility reports that breezy, critically dry conditions in the West will persist across southern California, where several wildfires continue to burn.

On the Plains, warm, dry, breezy weather favors a gradual return to fieldwork across eastern areas, where wheat planting and summer crop harvesting has been stalled by heavy rain. On the High Plains, conditions remain favorable for summer crop harvesting and late-season winter wheat planting.

In the Corn Belt, heavy rain is falling across eastern areas, halting fieldwork but boosting soil moisture for winter wheat emergence and establishment. Mild, dry weather favors a limited return to fieldwork in the western Corn Belt, although many fields remain too wet for harvest.

In the South, steady rain is lifting north, but a band of thunderstorms stretches from the southern Appalachians southward into the Gulf of Mexico. Southeastern showers are highly beneficial for drought-stressed pastures and newly planted winter grains. However, year-to-date precipitation deficits are still greater than 25 inches in some locations.

The outlook for Southern California’s wildfire threat will remain critical through midweek, although windy conditions should subside thereafter as the large high-pressure system centered over the Intermountain West shifts eastward. Dry weather will persist through week’s end throughout the West. Rain will continue to provide drought relief from the Southeast into the lower Ohio Valley, although local flash flooding may occur.

Showers will also spread across the Atlantic Coast states, followed at midweek by clearing and cooler weather in the Northeast. Toward the week’s end, showers will return to both the eastern Corn Belt and the Northeast.

The National Weather Service 6- to 10-day outlook for Oct. 28-Nov. 1 calls for cooler-than-normal weather across the West Coast states and near- to above-normal temperatures elsewhere. Wetter-than-normal weather in southern Florida, southern coastal California and much of the nation’s northern tier will contrast with below-normal precipitation in the Pacific Northwest and from Texas to the lower Ohio Valley.

— Release courtesy of USDA Ag Weather Facility.

— Compiled by Linda Robbins, assistant editor, Angus Productions Inc.