News Update
May 18, 2009

NOTICE: Association Web Sites to go Down During Computer System Update

The American Angus Association will be updating its computer system during the weekend of May 29 through June 1. Beginning Friday afternoon (May 29), several Association web sites will be unavailable for use. In particular, the AAA Login web site will be down the entire weekend.

Other web sites will have intermittent access available during this time. This notice includes the web sites for American Angus Association, National Junior Angus Association, Angus Productions Inc., and Angus Foundation.

Special note: National Junior Angus Show — The entry deadline and ownership deadline for the National Junior Angus Show is June 1, 2009 (postmark date). Please plan accordingly as online show entries will not be available after 4:30 p.m. CDT on May 29 due to computer system upgrades. All transfers need to be submitted prior to May 29, 2009, to ensure the work is completed. Thank you for your patience during this time of transition, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

— Notice provided by the American Angus Association.

Elizabeth Parker Assumes Leadership Post at Animal Agriculture Alliance

Elizabeth Parker, Chief Veterinarian for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), was named as the chair of the Animal Agriculture Alliance (Alliance) Board of Directors on May 18.

“The Alliance’s work communicating reliable information on behalf of America’s farmers and ranchers is important to the cattle producers at NCBA and every other person that depends on livestock agriculture; from corn and soybean growers all the way down the chain to consumers,” Parker said. “Everyone involved in the food chain must combat the misleading — and sometimes outrageous — claims of animal rights extremists. The Alliance is proactively working to explain how we ensure the well-being of the animals in our care.”

Parker praised the Alliance’s role as a forum for agricultural groups to develop common messages. “When anti-agriculture groups regularly exercise hyperbole to make their case, a reliable group needs to be able to correct the record,” she said. “I consider the Alliance to be in an excellent position to explain the stewardship and responsibility that livestock producers exercise in caring for their animals.”

Parker, who came to Washington, D.C., as the 1999-2000 American Veterinary Medical Association’s Congressional Science Fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Fellowship Program, has served on the Alliance board since 2007.

As NCBA’s Chief Veterinarian, Parker focuses on issues related to animal health, animal welfare and food safety and security, especially those being debated within the government agencies and in Congress. Prior to joining NCBA, she was based in Rome, Italy, as an International Consultant, Avian Influenza and Planning Operations Officer for the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations where she worked on highly pathogenic avian influenza.

— Release provided by NCBA.

President Slashes Conservation Funding for FY 2010

“The President’s FY (fiscal year) 2010 agriculture budget contains some disappointing proposals. Despite his desire to support conservation and agriculture, reductions in conservation spending will make it much more difficult for farmers and ranchers to make changes necessary to protect our air, land and water,” says Jon Scholl, President of American Farmland Trust (AFT). “We are well aware of the difficult economy and fiscal situation our nation faces, but we also recognize the improvements agriculture can bring to the serious environmental challenges we face, including climate change, reduced water quality and the loss of farmland.”

President Obama’s proposed budget would cut hundreds of millions of dollars from conservation programs that was promised under the 2008 Farm Bill.

AFT’s Bob Wagner, senior director of farmland protection programs, laments cuts to the Farm and Ranch Lands Protection Program (FRPP). “This is one of the most cost-effective conservation programs in the budget. Every $1 the federal government invests in protecting farmland through conservation easements and other tools is matched with $3 by farmers, and local and state programs.”

Wagner notes that the President’s budget would cut $30 million in funding in 2010, and $175 million over the next three years if extended.

Another critical program is the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP. “This is a working lands conservation program,” Scholl says. “All of the practices we are encouraging landowners to undertake are the kinds of things we want them to do — to install buffer strips between fields and streams and fence livestock out of waterways, for instance.” The EQIP program would be slashed by $250 million in the proposal.

“The one bright spot in the budget is funding for the Conservation Loan Guarantee Program,” says Dennis Nuxoll, AFT senior director of government relations.

“Farmers and ranchers have repeatedly indicated that conservation system costs limit their ability to apply suitable measures to their land. While the 2008 Farm Bill increased the amount of cost-share funding for conservation, we know not every project that every producer wants to apply onto his land will be funded,” Nuxoll added. “Producers in the past that wanted to upgrade an irrigation system in order to reduce water use might not [have been] able to do so due to a lack of cost-share assistance. Now with a conservation loan program, producers who want to apply conservation practices can do so with low- or no-interest government and government-backed loans.”

The President’s proposed budget for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) can be seen in its entirety at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fy2010_department_agriculture/.

— Release provided by AFT.

Youth Takes Ranching Way of Life to Urban Students

At 8 years old, Weston Svoboda is already a spokesperson for rural living and the ranching lifestyle that his family maintains in the Nebraska Sandhills. Although he just completed second grade at Sargent Public School, he’s spent the last two years communicating his way of life with his peers in elementary schools in urban settings through the Ag Pen Pals program.

The young agricultural advocate is the son of Scott and Jennifer Svoboda and is the fourth generation to live on his family’s ranch. He is in his second year of the Ag Pen Pals program, and this year communicated with two classrooms through written letters and videos filmed on his family’s registered Angus ranch, Sand Dune Cattle Co., south of Sargent. He corresponded with a second-grade class at Cottonwood Elementary School in the Millard Public School District and also with a first-grade class at Gomez Heritage Elementary School, near downtown Omaha, comprised of students from various ethnic backgrounds, many who speak an additional language besides English. During the last several months, Weston has exchanged letters, sent pictures and made videos in hopes of educating his pen pals about agriculture and rural life in Nebraska.

Weston says the best part of the pen pal program is actually getting to go to their classroom and meeting the kids he’s been writing to throughout the year. “I like seeing their classroom and teaching them what it is like in the country. They need to know that the food they eat grows on a farm, and the clothes they wear come from plants that grow on a farm,” he says.

Although Weston is reaching out to his peers, he can’t do it alone. His mother, Jennifer, records the videos and provides the needed transportation to the classrooms for him.

Last week, Weston and Jennifer made the trip to Millard and Omaha to meet his pen pals in person and showed them several items used on the ranch including ear tags, branding irons, a lariat, spurs, chaps, and halters. He also taught them about the sport of rodeo, and all the kids had an opportunity to try their hand at roping and running a barrel pattern on a stick horse. Weston took several samples of different feeds and grains that his family raises for human and animal consumption to share with his new friends.

“All the kids wanted to come home with us and visit the ranch,” Jennifer says. “I love to see how those kids absorb something brought to them by a peer; it’s amazing. The kids ask so many smart questions, and they believe what Weston tells them. It is so important to educate them at that age about agriculture; they need to know at an early age where their food comes from. Weston enjoys this project so much.”

And, Weston enjoys his rural lifestyle, saying he appreciates his trips to the city, but he’s glad he’s a country boy. “In the city there is too much going on, you can’t even sleep. And I like having my animals out in the country,” adds the young man who aspires to be a lawyer or even the president of the United States, but will always have roots as a rancher.

— Release provided by American Angus Association.

— compiled by Mathew Elliott, assistant editor, Angus Productions Inc.